She's All That Matters
by Cadoodles
Summary: Evvy, Briar, and Rosethorn are back in Summersea. What will happen when Briar starts having strange dreams about the past?
1. Conversations

"She's All That Matters"

_Now Briar made himself look at the mute. He had killed the man, after all; he owed it to him to face his work. There was little of the mute to see. The thorns and vines had covered him completely, gouging him in a thousand places and sprouting through his flesh, holding him in a massive, woody, bloodstained sheath. Briar nodded to his creation, his mouth trembling._

_It was him or me, he thought, turning away. I knew he could kill, and he was going for me._

_Evvy, he told himself. She's all that matters. _(excerpt from "Street Magic". I didn't write it!!)

Briar Moss stirred in his blanket as he heard his teacher's wake up call coming through the tent flap.

"Get your lazy bottom out of bed this instant boy!" Briar groaned and rolled over.

"Two more minutes...." He murmured. Rosethorn, hearing this, thrust her head through the tent's opening.

"NOW!!" she yelled. Briar jumped at the sound at the sound of her voice. Quickly rolling off of his cot he started to get dressed.  
"I'm up, I'm up!" he shouted back. Pulling on his right shoe, Briar muttered, "Seems to get more crotchety each day...."

"I heard that," Rosethorn growled outside. "Just for that charming comment, you have breakfast cleanup duty." Briar gritted his teeth and violently pulled on his left shoe.

Once Briar had finished dressing, he stalked outside to find Evvy crouched near the fire watching a pot boil. Her head was rested on her palms in a sulky scowl.

"She's only grumpy because of me," she said glumly, still gazing at the pot.

"Now why would that be?" Briar asked.

"Well, Rosethorn's been teaching me how to cook, but I keep getting the stupid measurements wrong," Evvy said, this time turning to look at him. Briar planted himself on the spot next to her. Glancing in her direction, he spotted a smudge of white powder on Evvy's nose.

_Flour_, he thought, grinning. _No matter where she goes, she gets dirty._ He reached his hand out to brush it away. Seeing her questioning expression, he replied, "... flour on your face."

"You know, I could get that stuff off by **myself**," Evvy declared defiantly. She swatted Briar's hand away and tried to rub it off using her palm. After several fruitless attempts, Briar lost patience.

"Oh, stop fussing." He grabbed her wrist as she attempted to try again. "Just let me do it." Briar carefully brushed the spot away with his fingertips.

"Still coulda done that on my own," Evvy muttered under her breath. Standing up, she stated, "I'm gonna go wash up," she glared at Briar, "unless you think that I can't do **that **by myself either."

"You do tend to miss that spot around your ears though," he said thoughtfully. Evvy sniffed indignantly and stuck out her tongue. Briar only chuckled. At hearing his amusement, Evvy rolled her eyes and stalked off.

Briar grinned after her and stared at the fire as Evvy had before.

_...massive, woody, bloodstained sheath..._

He frowned. What could this mean? Sure he had dreamed about the strangled corpses rotting in Lady Zenadia's garden from time to time, but never about the mute he had killed. "Strange," Briar whispered aloud.

"Now, I plan on reaching Summersea by tomorrow, so we best start cleaning things up." Rosethorn emphasized this by dropping a pack at Briar's feet. "Clean the pots in the stream and pack them in here."

"Sure," he said solemnly, slinging the dropped pack over one shoulder.

"You're sure acting quiet..." Rosethorn remarked with an arched eyebrow.

Briar replied, "Eh, just tired I guess," and went off into the forest in the direction of the stream. She let him go, knowing that her student obviously didn't want to discuss whatever was bothering him at that time.

"I'll get it out of him later." Rosethorn said matter-of-factly. She turned and walked toward her tent to ready her things.

_It just doesn't make sense,_ Briar thought, pausing every now and then along the path to stroke an attention-seeking plant. _I guess there's no point in worrying about it now. Whatever it wants to make clear for me, I'll know soon enough._ In spite of his thoughts, however, he could not stop thinking about the mysterious dreams until he got to the stream. Once Briar got there, he set the pots he was preparing to clean on the bank. Suddenly, he felt the unmistakable presence of someone behind him. The sneaker was just a few steps behind him now; Briar felt his knives slide along his palms. Whoever had snuck up on him would be sorry. He whirled around, wrist knives ready in his hands.

"GAH!!" Evvy yelped, dropping a basket full of clothing. Once she recovered from the initial shock, she pointed at the daggers in Briar's hands. "What are those for?!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide under her recently washed hair. "What's the big idea, pulling those things on me?!" she said, forgetting about the scattered laundry. Briar blinked, and then sighed.

"Sorry Evvy," he said, his voice low. "You just spooked me, that's all." He stooped to pick up the clothing Evvy had let fall in her scare. She stared at him.

_Whoa, _Evvy thought. _He's being so...so...**weird. **He didn't even say anything about sneaking up on him or anything. _She frowned. _He's not acting right, _she decided. Crouching, Evvy put a hand on Briar's forehead. "Are you sick?" Evvy inquired.

"Hm?" Briar grunted, not paying attention.

Evvy sat on her knees. "Well you're just being so, so..." she paused, trying to think of the right word. "...reasonable."

Briar's head snapped up. "Reasonable?! Since when am I not reasonable?!"

"Like now." Evvy replied coolly, looking at him under her lowered eyelids. "Hmm. Guess I'm wrong, you're acting just fine now." She turned to the laundry, "Unless you wanna say something else...?"

Briar scowled. _I hate it when she does that. _He, too, turned to his chore. _Impudent brat._

As they set about doing their tasks, Evvy asked, trying to stir conversation, "So, why were you acting so...not yourself?"

"Eh, Evvy, I don't want to talk about it," Briar said. He kept his back turned, busy scraping off a bit of petrified food from a pan. Evvy furrowed her brow and bit the inside of her cheek to stop her aggravated reply. Instead, she took her anger out on the laundry she now washed.

_Fine_, she thought, violently scrubbing a pair of leggings with her hands. _That's just fine. Be that way. Don't tell **Evvy **whatever you're hiding, after all, she's only trying to be helpful_. She wrung the cloth extremely tight, having pleasure in imaging it as Briar's neck.

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't notice Briar staring at her. Evvy jumped when he finally said, "Uh, Evvy? Is something wrong? You've been squeezing those things for ten minutes now." Evvy dropped the clothing and turned to face him, hands on her hips.

"I don't wanna talk about it. How about that?" she declared, trying her best to imitate her teacher. When he didn't say anything, she prepared to get back to work by reaching for the throttled leggings. She'd almost grabbed it when she realized Briar had said something. "What?" she asked.

"You're really that worried?" he questioned.

"Who said I was worried about you?" Evvy shot back. She then mentally punched herself for saying those last two words.

"Indeed. Who did?" he smirked. Now it was Evvy's turn to scowl. _Ha_, Briar thought, _Got her back. _"Well, if you really want to know, I've just been...nervous."

_Nervous?_ Evvy's eyebrows snapped together. _Nervous? Pahan Briar...nervous? _

Briar sat on the bank, leaning backward on his hands. "One reason I've been quiet today is because I'm anxious about tomorrow." He rotated his head toward Evvy and asked, "You do know we're meeting Duke Vedris, right?"

"Yeah, I can't wait!" Evvy cried, starting to bounce. At seeing her reaction, Briar's grin spread.

"Yep. Glad you're thrilled. Anyway, I was thinking about Sandry-"

"Ooh. The noble girl you've been telling me about?" Evvy interrupted. Her eyes started to glitter with excitement. She had heard loads of stories from Briar about the kind and brave Lady Sandrilene fa Toren. At first, Evvy had been reluctant to believe the tales, devoutly believing that nobles could not be trusted. But when Rosethorn, whose compliments where almost as rare as diamonds, had spoken well of Lady Sandry, it occurred to Evvy that Briar was indeed telling the truth and not some exaggerated tale.

"The very same. Me and the girls were like family back when we all lived in Discipline. We shared just about everything, even sometimes, our minds. I've been worried lately. It's just that, now that we've been away from each other for so long and the fact that we've all been through new experiences," Briar tugged Evvy's nose, indicating his experience with teaching. Before she could fight back, he continued, "I think we may have grown too far apart to ever go back to that close friendship." Briar sighed and looked up into the cloudy sky. "I mean what if she turned into a snooty good-for-nothing Bag girl while I was gone?" He turned to look back at Evvy. Despite the smile he wearing, she could detect the sadness in his eyes. Evvy knew the best thing to do in this situation was to comfort the sad person, but living alone or with people who didn't usually need comforting throughout her life had made her very inexperienced in the matter.

"Um," she began awkwardly. "Look, Pahan Briar," Evvy started. "Lady Sandry has been a noble all her life, right?" she inquired. Briar nodded. She went on very quickly, "And you met here when she was like ten or eleven and she was nice then and she coulda turned nasty any time before that but she didn't so what difference would it make now since you've been gone only a couple of years?" Evvy stopped and caught her breath. Briar raised his eyebrows in both surprise and confusion. At seeing his bewildered expression, Evvy remarked sullenly, "I never was any good at this kinda thing." She drooped her head. She started to get up, but an arm stopped her. Briar had slid an arm around her shoulders to prevent her from moving.

"Please keep going, I think you were onto something there," he said encouragingly, a kind smile lighting up his face.

Evvy, not sure what to think, stuttered, "Eh? Oh, uh....ok," she sat back down on the flat river rocks. She touched one of the cold, smooth stones underneath her palm to calm herself and regain her train of thought and scratched her head. "Well, uh, what I was **trying** to say was Lady Sandry lived a long time as a noble, even before you met her, without becoming a snotty brat face, so, I was thinking, what would a few years do to her?" Evvy said, hoping that was the right thing to say.

"You know, that is true," he said. He was starting to feel a lot better about the situation.

Evvy brightened when she heard his response and said, "And, from what you've told me of Lady Sandry, she don't seem like the kinda person who would do something like that."

"I think you're right, Evvy," Briar announced. "I shouldn't worry." He smiled down at Evvy, and she grinned back. "You know what? Talking to you is almost as good as talking to Sandry herself."

"Really?!" she exclaimed. Her eyes started sparkling again.

"Really," Briar answered, ruffling her hair.

Evvy hit his hand and glared. "I **hate **it when you do that."

"I know you do," his kind smile turning wry.

"Whatever." Evvy said, and with that they set back to doing their set tasks, Briar, conveniently forgetting to tell her about what else was bothering him.

Little did they know of the figure standing in the trees a few feet behind them. Rosethorn stood, hands crossed over her chest, watching them from the shadows of an oak.

"Hmph," she grunted. "He won't tell me, but he'll tell the skinny brat. Oh well, I'll give him hell later." She turned and walked away. In spite of her harsh talk, Rosethorn fought to keep a smile from creeping onto her face.

6


	2. Homecoming

After a brief visit to Winding Circle to say hello to Lark and to answer Evvy's now nonstop questions, ("Is this where Lady Sandry lived?" "Wow, this is so exciting!" "Was this your room Pahan Briar?" "It's kinda smelly." "You were Lady Sandry's teacher?" "What do you mean, we can't stay too long?") they entered the city of Summersea on horseback a little before noon the next day. The group made their way through the city's crowded marketplace, Evvy pausing to stare now and then at shop stalls.

Briar became so eager to reach the Duke's Citadel, that at Evvy's fourth stop, he blurted, "I'd like to reach the place before Midwinter if you don't mind, so can we get a move on here?!" Evvy spun around and made a face.

"Touchy," she sniffed, but obediently hurried along.

A little while later, they reached their destination. As they entered the courtyard, Briar realized that Evvy's stream of talking had ceased. He glanced over and saw that it had been replaced with wide eyes and awed silence. Briar turned to see what she was staring at.

Straight ahead, sitting on the lip of a fountain, Duke Vedris IV and a lady of maybe fifteen or sixteen were having a conversation. Evvy noticed that the lady, whose sun-streaked light brown hair was pulled up into a bun, was wearing a light blue cotton dress embroidered at the hems and neckline with white silk lilies. The Duke wore an even plainer outfit of tan breeches and a white shirt, despite his obviously higher rank. Evvy did not know why, but it seemed that even in his drab clothing, she would have known immediately that this man was nobility. At the sound of the horse's hooves striking the ground, the lady's head faced them. Evvy also noted that the lady's eyes were of the brightest blue. Evvy sighed, thinking of her own dull, dark brown eyes compared to the lady's sky blue ones.

Briar then dismounted and bowed diplomatically.

"Your grace, and Lady- OOMF!" Recovering from the shock, he realized Sandry had flung herself at him. He almost fell backwards at the force of the hug. Evvy, still not realizing the identity of the lady, gasped.

_What's that girl doing? _She thought. _Throwing her arms around Pahan Briar like she was-...wait, unless she's..._

"Sandry!" Briar choked, unsuccessfully trying to peel her arms off of his neck.

"Oh, be quiet, kid," she laughed. "Do you have any idea how long it's been?! And here you were thinking I would waste this moment on formalities?"

"That is so like you." Briar rolled his eyes. "I should have known you would be the same as ever." The two kept chatting as Rosethorn said her own greetings to Duke Vedris. Feeling a bit left out of things, Evvy sighed and stepped down from her own horse and grabbed one of her bags.

"And who is this?" Sandry said, directly behind her. Evvy yelped and tripped, sending her belongings everywhere.

_Wow, how'd she get so close without me knowing? _Evvy wondered, and then realized, _Her clothes don't rustle; they're just like Pahan Briar's. Well yeah, _her smarter self said. _She's the one who made them._

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Sandry cried. She got down on her knees to help the fallen girl. "I didn't mean to scare you!" Evvy saw that the other girl's blue eyes were filled with worry.

"I'm fine! I'm fine, really," she tried to reassure the noble. She picked up some of her things. _Jeez, you'd think I couldn't get through a whole week without dropping things, _Evvy thought. She then realized that the knees of Sandry's dress were now bathing in dirt. She shot up and said, "Um, Lady Sandry...you're gonna ruin your pretty dress."

Sandry didn't even glance down. "Oh, don't worry about this thing. You're sure you're all right?"

Evvy blinked. _A noble who doesn't care about her clothes, but cares about riff-raff like me, _Evvy turned this over in her mind. _That's rare. _She continued to pick things up. _Of course, _her brighter self piped up once again. _She's the incredible Sandry, could you have expected any less? _Though the argument was plausible, Evvy still felt reasonably surprised. Before Evvy could stop it, out of her mouth popped, "You aren't like most nobles. That's strange." She clasped her hands over her traitor mouth. _Great, _Evvy thought. _Just great. Here I am, having good moment with Lady Sandry and I had to ruin it. Great. _

Whatever Evvy had expected the noble to do next, it was replaced by Sandry's friendly smile and reply, "So most people say." She then grabbed an armful of Evvy's things and neatly tried to arrange everything in her bag.

Once everything had been tidied, Sandry went to welcome Rosethorn. When she was gone, Briar said to Evvy, "Yep. She isn't like most nobles."


	3. Plans

Dinner that night was lonely for Evvy. While the two reunited friends conversed, catching up on lost time, she sat on the opposite side of the table poking at her food.

Grimly, she smiled. _Barely two years ago I would have been gobbling down this food like there was no tomorrow._ She then looked over at the side of the table where Briar was seated. _How things change. _

Evvy propped her chin on her hand and surveyed those who sat around her. On one end of the table-the end she was closest to- sat Duke Vedris talking with a thin bald man. At the Duke's other side, Rosethorn chatted with a white-skinned nobleman. All down the table she could see men and women sharing their own conversations.

_Except for me, _she thought sadly. Evvy stole another look at Sandry and Briar and went back to picking at her food.

At the other end of the table, Briar was telling Sandry of his first encounter with Evvy. "...she just up and ran. I hadn't even spoken more than maybe two sentences to her. And boy, can she run **fast**." Sandry giggled and looked around.

"Speaking of which, where is she?" Sandry, being so preoccupied with the arrival of Briar, she hadn't noticed that his young student wasn't even sitting with them.

"She's sitting over there. Why? Did you need her for something?" Sandry watched as the young girl idly rolled a pea around the edges of her plate with her fork.

Sandry shook her head. "No, but...look at her." Briar obeyed. He observed as Evvy sneezed and wiped her nose on her sleeve when she thought no one was looking. He turned back to Sandry.

"Yeah? What about her?" Sandry glared, not fully believing that he had said that.

_Men, _she thought, exasperated. _It's a wonder how they survived the Jurassic age with such ignorance. _"How can you be so blind? She looks so...uncomfortable."

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, she really hates being in castles and noble houses and such." Sandry continued to glare at him. "What? Was that important?"

Had she not been in her uncle's presence, she would have yanked off his ear. Instead, she hissed through gritted teeth, "Of **course **it was important! **Look **at her. She is **sulking**!"

"Hm. You're right," Briar replied, not shaken by Sandry's reaction. "That is weird. She was so excited to meet you before we got here, she was bouncing."

"Really? She was excited to see me?" Sandry asked, momentarily forgetting her anger.

"Mm hm. She'd wanted to talk to you all day."

She grinned broadly. "She really-wait, since you've been here, I'll I've been doing is talking to **you**! No wonder she has been lonely! I feel so guilty! What will I-wait, I know!" Sandry clapped her hands in front of herself, suddenly having the answer. "I'll take her out into the city tomorrow! She'll spend the whole day with me, we'll shop, and explore, and, and-"

Briar interrupted, "Hold up, Duchess." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "You might want to quiet down. People are starting to stare." It was true; two of the noble ladies had stopped eating their dainty pastries to watch the pair.

Sandry blushed and murmured, "I didn't know I was **that **loud." Briar removed his hand and continued with his meal, cutting up a bit of meat on his plate.

"Eh, don't worry about it. What was your big plan with Evvy tomorrow again?"

"Well, I was thinking that since I didn't spend much time to get to know her today, I could take her to the marketplace tomorrow and shop. Probably for dresses-"

"What's the occasion?" Briar asked between chewing.

Sandry replied, "You know, the welcoming banquet my uncle's throwing. It's on the same day Daja and Tris come. Evvy needs a proper dress for it. Didn't anyone ever tell you that chewing while speaking makes you look like a disgruntled pig?"

Briar stopped chewing and said, "Old habits die hard."

"You'd have thought that we would have cured you of that particular habit, living with us as long as you did."

Briar threw his arms up to his face and cried, "Woe to me, even the great Lady Sandrilene fa Toren couldn't cure me of my pig-like chewing. What shall I do?" He snorted and went back to eating.

"Oh shut up," she retorted. "Anyway after shopping I will need to go and see Pasco for his lessons." Sandry got an idea. "Do you think Evvy would like to come with me?"

"Tippy Toes? I'd bet she would like to see him too, I guess."  
"Don't call him that!" Sandry snapped. "One of his family members, a couple years back, taunted him with a name that sounded a lot like that. Pasco left him hanging in the air for hours."

"Bah." Briar said, clearly undaunted. "It'll take more than that to get me."

"Whatever you say," Sandry shrugged. "Will you tell Evvy after dinner?" she asked.

"Sure," he replied


	4. Shopping

The next day proved warm and sunny as Briar, Sandry, and Evvy set out from Duke's Citadel around noon. Evvy, now a great deal more cheerful than the day before, had skipped on ahead a few feet. When she reached the gates, she paused and stepped out from the shadow of the Citadel's wall and into the wash of sunshine. Giggling, she twirled around, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her hair and skin. Evvy had always loved the sun, even before she lived in Chammur. It was so warm and comforting, almost like when she held stones.

Watching her, Briar chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Sandry asked.

Still watching Evvy, Briar replied, "Her." Then he added, almost wistfully, "I love it when she's happy." Sandry blinked. She looked at Evvy, then back at Briar. Suddenly it dawned on her. Biting her bottom lip, she struggled to control the fit of giggles that had unexpectedly welled up within her. She brought her handkerchief up to her mouth and pretended to cough, hoping Briar wouldn't notice

Evvy zoomed from shop stall to shop stall when they finally ventured to the section of the marketplace where the shops dealt mainly with stones. She was glowing with enthusiasm. In every shop, she ran her hands over each and every stone, feeling them grow warm under her touch.

"Hey, stop that." Briar grabbed her arm just as she was about to stroke a whole row of amethysts. "You'll get them worked up, and chances are, the shopkeepers'll notice."

Evvy turned her face up towards him, her bright smile still on her face. "But the stones here are so **nice**," she told him. "It's like they-"Evvy's eyes widened as she looked over Briar's shoulder at a stall across the way. "No way," she whispered. "Pahan Briar, look at this!" She grabbed his hand.

"Evvy-hey!" he yelped as she dragged him over to the shop. Sandry's suppressed laughter finally exploded as she watched the pair.

They shopped for another hour until they reached the dress shop Sandry had wanted to go to. Unlike the stalls they had come across so far, this one practically screamed wealth. The building was painted a soft pink with white borders around the expensive glass windows. In the windows, dummies displayed the latest fashions. The sign above the door read: Antoinette's Ball Gowns and Dresses. One look at the shop had almost made Briar gag. Here was one place he knew that he did not want to go in.

_Girls and dresses, _he thought. _One thing I'll never understand._

"Uh, I have to go run some errands for Rosethorn, so...um, see you girls later." With that, he ran off in the other direction. Evvy watched him go.

Puzzled, she asked, "Lady Sandry what's wrong with Pahan Briar?"

"Briar's just scared to go inside," she replied. "And you don't have to call me Lady Sandry all the time, Evvy," she said with a smile. "Just plain 'Sandry' is fine."

"Oh, ok...Sandry." Then she asked, "Why would he be afraid? This shop looks so....cute."

"Exactly," Sandry said. She then led a slightly confused Evvy inside to buy her dress. (4)

2


	5. Dresses

The interior of the shop was even more lavish than the outside. The floor was covered in a rich green carpet, while the ceiling and the walls were painted a pale blue. Overstufffed pink armchairs were placed in every corner. At the left side of the room, a series of doors were set into the wall

_Dressing rooms, _Evvy thought. Against the walls more dummies modeled gowns. Sandry walked her over to one of the chairs.

"Wait here. I'll be right back with some things for you to try on." Sandry then hurried off. Evvy sat and observed her surroundings. She saw various nobles and wealthy women inspecting the racks and shelves where many silk dresses were displayed. Every now and then, one would spot her and then turn away in disgust.

_Well, I don't like you either, _she thought, glaring at the last one who had glanced at her.

Sandry came back a few minutes later with three ball gowns draped over own arm. Evvy saw that one was golden brown silk, another made of a burgundy velvety fabric, and the last was gray-green color and made of a material she could not recognize.

"Oh," she whispered. "Those are pretty!"

"I'm sorry. These were the only ones they had in your size," Sandry apologized. "I couldn't get some of the fancier ones." Evvy gaped at her. They have fancier ones?

"Uh, that's ok. These ones are just fine," she assured Sandry.

"Good. Let's have you try them on to see which one we will buy." She led Evvy over to the dressing rooms. Opening one of the many doors, she said, "Try the red one on first, I have high hopes for it." She dumped the dresses into Evvy's arms and gave her a light shove into the small room, closing the door behind her.

After a short war of pulling, tugging, and twisting, Evvy finally got the outfit on straight. She then stepped out from the changing room to find Sandry already outside the door, waiting for her. Cupping her chin in her hand, she examined Evvy top to toe.

"Hmm. I guess I was wrong." Sandry cocked her head to the side. "It's too plain." She then pushed Evvy back inside.

"Next one," she ordered.

Once she had tried on the golden brown dress ("Too old-fashioned." Sandry had proclaimed.), Evvy stepped back inside to change into the grey-green ball gown.

"Hope we have better luck with this one," Sandry said hopefully, sinking into one of the plush chairs. Moments later, she heard Evvy shriek in the dressing room. Sandry immediately shot out of the chair and ran over. "What's wrong, Evvy?" she called to other side of the door.

"I, I...uh think, you may have gotten the, the wrong dress," Evvy stammered.

"Why? Let me see." She opened the door.

Evvy stood near the opposite wall, arms crossed over her front, hiding it from view. "Evvy, move your arms so I can see what's wrong. Maybe I can fix it."

Evvy shook her head. "I **really **don't think you can fix this." She explained, "Well...you, uh, see I was dressing and I looked down and I uh, saw this." She removed her arms to reveal a low square neckline that exposed more of her chest than the other dresses had.

Sandry stared. "What am I supposed to be looking at?" she questioned.

"Don't you see this gaping hole?!" Evvy demanded. Sandry burst out in very unladylike laughter. Seeing her reaction, Evvy asked, "What's the matter? Did I say something wrong?"

Sandry regained control of herself, though only barely. Taking a deep breath to ensure that she wouldn't giggle herself to death, she replied, "Evvy, you don't understand. The dress is supposed to be that way."

Evvy gawked at the older girl. "You mean it's not faulty?" she inquired. "Doesn't it seem awfully....low?"

Sandry smiled and informed her, "That's just the style today. And, frankly, it looks quite pretty on you." She turned to the door. "Come see for yourself." Evvy blushed at the compliment and followed her to the three paneled mirror.

Looking down on the gown while wearing it in the dressing room had not prepared her for what she saw in the large mirror.

The dress had beautiful silk embroidery in swirling patterns across the front and down the short sleeves that ended at her elbows. Flowing white chiffon sewn to the edges of the sleeves covered the parts of her arms where the jade material had not. Below, the wide skirts parted in front to show layers of white sild that gave off a soft multi-colored sheen. Turning, Evvy gasped as she saw the fine pearl buttons that ran down the backside of the dress.

"It's so beautiful..." Evvy breathed, running a hand down an embroidered sleeve.

"I'm glad you like it!" Sandry smiled. "Well, that settles it. I'll go buy the dress while you get changed." She then left to pay, leaving Evvy to herself.

Evvy, a bit reluctant to remove the dress, stroked the chiffon and silk a couple times before retuning to the dressing room. She loved the feel of the fine material on her body. Looking in that mirror, she had actually felt refined and beautiful. For once in her life, Evumeimei Dingzai had been a lady.


	6. Dainty Feet

"He has a family of what?!" Evvy yelled, her mouth agape as they entered the house's courtyard.

A perplexed Sandry replied, "Harriers. You know, Law Keepers." She spotted Evvy's fearful face. "Something wrong?"

Evvy stared at the older girl. Something wrong?! Of course there was something wrong. Where she came from, expecting a member of the Watch and a thukdak like her to get along was like hoping hell would freeze over. It just wasn't going to happen.

_She doesn't know, _she realized. _She's a noble; she doesn't understand that law keepers-no matter where they come from- do not like street rats, even former ones. _"Oh never mind," Evvy said, deciding that now was not the time for explaining.

The two walked up to the door. Sandry thumped the metal knocker against the wood and waited. After a few moments, the door was opened to reveal a smiling tall muscular woman.

"Ah, Lady Sandrilene. So nice to see you again, come in!" They obeyed. "Pasco's around here somewhere, probably in the prayer room. I'll let you get on with the lessons then." She turned to leave, but then noticed Evvy. "Who are you? I don't recall ever seeing you around." She said with a grin.

"Zahra, this is Evvy-Evumeimei Dingzai." Evvy curtsied, or rather, a very wobbly version of one. "She is my friend Briar's student. She is spending the day with me."

"Well Miss Evvy, would you like something to eat or drink?" though the offering of food tempted her, Evvy shook her head and shuffled a bit closer to Sandry. Even after being away from the street rat life, meeting new people still made her nervous and quiet. Staying with Sandry seemed to be the best choice to her.

Sandry, aware of Evvy's behavior suggested, "If you'll excuse me, I think Evvy would be better to stay with me for now."

"Alright then." She smiled as the pair made their way to the prayer room. "Well have a good lesson!" she called after them.

Sandry led her companion to the room Pasco and his family used for prayer and meditation. Pasco was indeed there, already meditating. At the sound of their entering, he opened one eye.

"Hello Pasco!" Sandry greeted from the doorway. Pasco stood up slowly, stretching out stiff limbs.

"Hey Sandry," he said back. "Sorry I started without you. I figured that if I did half my meditation already, we wouldn't have to do so much at Yazmin's." Pasco gave a pleading smile.

Sandry arched an eyebrow at her student. "Trying to convince me that you've already done half of your meditation already, eh?" She lowered her eyelids and said, "How do I know you're not trying to cheat yourself out of meditating?"

"I give you my solemn word as a harrier," he pledged, raising his hand.

"And that's supposed to comfort me?" she said in a dull voice. While Pasco spoke, Sandry had pulled out a bit of string. She now walked over to the boy and tied it around his neck.

Confused, Pasco asked, "What's this supposed to-"

"Hush. Now, **were** you meditating?" she interrogated.

Almost as if he couldn't control his mouth, he replied quickly, "No, I saw you arrive a few minutes ago, and I thought that if I told you this story you would believe me and let me do only half the work. What I said about my word as a harrier wasn't true; I'm crossing my fingers behind my back." Pasco gasped, eyes wide. Even Evvy, who was trying to ignore the conversation, was confounded.

Sandry closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "I would have expected better of you Pasco," she sighed. "Ah well. It doesn't matter; we weren't going to go to Yazmin's for meditation anyway. The room we usually use is being occupied. Instead, she offered to give you a double lesson today to make up for it."

Pasco wasn't listening; he was too busy trying to rip the string that was around his throat. "Damn it! It won't come off. What the hell is this thing anyway?!" he glared at his teacher.

Sandry rolled her eyes at his crude language. "You know, swear words don't help any situation. And that string is a new invention of mine. Tied around a person's neck, they won't be able to lie, or keep a closed mouth for that matter." She then walked up to her student to look him straight in the eye. "And it doesn't come off until I think you are mature enough to tell the truth to your own teacher."

Pasco was silent after that. Whenever Sandry wanted to be commanding, she did it well.

He was about to go on protesting when he spotted Evvy, who was attempting valiantly to blend into a wall.

"Hey, who's that?" he asked loudly.

"Don't be rude, Pasco," Sandry scolded. She then scooted Evvy in front of herself. "Evvy, as you might have guessed, this is Pasco Acalon. And Pasco, this is Evvy. She is Briar's student, remember? I told you they'd be visiting a couple days ago." Sandry removed her hands from Evvy's shoulders. "She is also studying to be a stone mage."

Pasco grunted. "She has magic with pebbles?" Evvy glowered.

_This kid's acting mighty cocky for someone who has to jump around to work his magic, _she thought. Evvy decided not to say anything to this snob, at least, not while Sandry was there.

Sandry, not noticing the glares being exchanged between the students, said cheerily, "Ok, well Briar's supposed to be on his way here in a while, so you two can chat and get to know each other." She walked towards the door. "I forgot to ask Zahra something, so I'll be back in twenty minutes or so." Sandry then strolled outside, leaving Evvy and Pasco alone.

Evvy scooted herself as far away from the boy as the room would let her.

_Hopefully, _she thought, _if I stay in this corner and be quiet, I won't have to talk to that snot. _Her hopes were shattered though, when Pasco spoke.

"So, you're a rock mage," he stated. Evvy scowled once more. She had never minded being called a rock mage before, but hearing it out of the boy's mouth, it sounded suspiciously like an insult.

"I'd prefer **stone **mage, if it's all the same," she snapped.

"What does it matter? They're still rocks, there's not much you can do with them," he said absently.

Evvy glared at him, her face crimson with anger. "Oh yeah? Well at least rocks are better than hopping around in circle like some idiot!" she shot back fiercely.

Pasco froze. "What did you say?"

"I said, it's better than hopping around in a circle like some idiot," she said slowly, making sure he heard every word.

"What are you trying to say?" he said icily.

"You know what I'm saying."

"You wanna fight, Rock Girl?" Pasco said, raising his voice a bit.

"Bring it on, Dainty Feet!" Evvy challenged. She took a step forward, expecting him to make the first move. They both paused, staring each other down. Suddenly, Evvy saw the boy step towards the door.

"You're not planning to-"Her question was answered however, when Pasco ran out the door. "That little..." she grumbled as she followed. Stepping into the sunlight, she yelled, "Coward! Come back and here and fight!" Her threat was answered when her whole body was thrust suddenly upward into the air. She stopped rising about ten feet in the ground.

Even hovering dangerously in midair, she had the nerve to quip, "What kind of circus trick is this? Let me down, you monkey turd!!"

"Monkey turd?" Pasco said, arching an eyebrow. "Whatever. If this is a circus trick, you could let **yourself **down!" he shouted up to her from below. "Unless my concentration is broken, there isn't a chance in hell-"Pasco's explanation was cut short when a large ball-shaped rock slammed into his stomach.

His hold on Evvy shattered, causing her to fall to the ground. As she hit the hard courtyard stone, she felt a sharp pain on her left shoulder and leg. A warm trickle down her pained arm told her she was bleeding.

She groaned as she examined her cuts and bruises. Evvy frowned when she saw Pasco, who, from the looks of it, she had apparently knocked the wind out of.  
"Serves you right," she muttered as she sluggishly got to her feet. Facing the fallen boy, she raised her uninjured arm parallel to the ground.

The flat stone tiles underneath Pasco started to shake. "Let's see how much **you **like being up high in the air," Evvy remarked coldly. Sweat gathered on her brow as she told the tiles to rise. The stone and their burden were about an inch off the ground when a familiar voice called out behind her.

"Evvy!!" Briar yelled again.

Evvy knew that tone all too well; she let Pasco drop. Her teacher ran up and grabbed both of her arms. "What in Shurri's name did you think you were..." he trailed off as he saw the blood that had dripped onto his hand from her shoulder. His eyes hardened. "How did this happen?" Briar asked quietly. Evvy looked away.

"I fell," she said stubbornly. _I'm not lying, _she tried to convince herself. _I did fall...because Dainty Feet put a stupid spell on me._

"These don't look like wounds you'd get from a mere fall," Briar said to himself.

"It is if you fell from fifteen feet in the air," she muttered when she thought he wasn't paying attention.

He heard every word. "You fell from that height?! How did you-"

"Ask **him**!" Evvy interrupted. Briar glanced in Pasco's direction. He watched as Sandry helped Pasco to his feet.

"Don't worry," he lowered his eyelids and continued, "I will." Evvy stiffened. She had never heard her teacher sound so cold before.

"Let me go get some things from my kit. You stay here," Briar ordered her.

After a few minutes, he came back with some bandages, a bottle of cut bane, and a jar of jelly that shrunk bruises.

As he dressed her wounds, Briar remarked, "You shouldn't have done that, let him get to you." He lightly smoothed some liquid over Evvy's bleeding shoulder.

"How do you know that he got to me?" she demanded.

"I know the whole story. Sandry just informed me, who heard it from Pasco." He rolled a bandage over the wound. "Anyway, you shouldn't have gotten so angry."

"Hmph. You make it sound like what he did was a little thing," Evvy sniffed.

"No, I'm saying that you should not let your emotions run wild. When you are scared or upset, your powers tend to find ways to get out. You don't know what they're capable of," he said quietly. He finished bandaging.

"Is that all? Don't you think after all those meditation lessons and lectures over the past few years I wouldn't know that?" Evvy crossed her arms over chest. "I don't need a nursemaid. I can take care of **myself**." Expecting a retort or even a scolding, she glared, prepared to defend her ground.

Briar only smiled at his student. "I'm sure you could." Evvy's defiance evaporated to be replaced by shock. Briar leaned in closer to look her in the eye as he went on, "I just don't want to see you get hurt anymore." He rubbed a little bruise balm onto a small bruise on her cheek. "Why don't you head inside? Clean up a bit, you're a mess."

Evvy started to go, but stopped after a few feet. She turned and called, "You seem like you're only going to give him a slap on the hand as punishment."

"I resent that! I thought you'd trust me enough to know that I wouldn't let him go without a thorough beating!" Briar said with mock disgust. Evvy giggled and ran towards the house, not knowing that he wasn't joking.

As soon as Evvy was gone, his smile vanished. He strode over to Sandry, who had just come back from interrogating Pasco further.

"Where is he?" Briar questioned.  
"Why? What are you going to do with him?"

"I'm going to kill him. Isn't it obvious?" He cracked his knuckles.

"You are doing no such thing. I've already spoken to him. Apparently, he was being a brat today because he was jealous. Jealous! Of all things! All because I went out with Evvy today. He can be so childish sometimes."

"I don't care if furry monsters are controlling him. I'm still gonna kill him," Briar said.

Sandry put her hands on her head. "I really don't need this right now. I've still got a party to plan, a million errands to run, our students are attacking each other, Pasco is late for his dance lesson, Uncle hasn't been feeling well, and now, on top of all that, you want to kill my first student. I really don't need this right now." Sandry sat down hard on a nearby bench. Briar saw how tired she was, and sighed.

"Fine. I'll lay off. If it will take a bit of stress off of your plate, I won't kill him....today," he said.

"Really? Thanks!" the noble hugged him. "Maybe I won't have a headache after all." Briar laughed.

A few yards away from inside a house window, Evvy watched, eyes narrowed.


	7. Dreams

(A/N: A review I read the other day asked why Sandry and Briar don't mind-speak in my fanfic. To tell the truth, I had actually forgotten that important detail (so much for being a Tamora Pierce fanatic...sniff my dream is ruined!!). I considered changing the story to fit the mind-speaking in, but now that I think about it, it would change the some of the situations dramatically, and I don't want to do that. So, I figured that since we are so into the story already, we could just conveniently forget that they can speak through their minds and enjoy the story regardless. Well, on with the chapter!)

_Lady Zenadia chuckled warmly, real amusement in her voice. "My dear pahan, if nothing else betrays your youth, this does! Young girls cannot be allowed to order their own fates! They have neither the experience nor the fixedness of purpose of their elders. This is why I would be more fit undertake her education. I have raised three daughters, and each married well. Once Evumeimei is under my roof, her childish attempts to order her life, rather than fit obediently into her proper place, will end. She will thank us both for that, one day."_

_The bleakness of the vision-of the life- she had just proposed made Briar's breath catch in his throat. She wants to break Evvy to the rein like a, a horse, he realized, suddenly furious. Battling his temper, knowing he would kick himself later if he opened his mouth now, he rested the larch on its original earth and me the woman's large, dark eyes squarely. "My lady, if you bought this tree because you thought I would force Evvy to live with you in exchange, I'd better take it home," he said, his voice flat. "She's settled with my teacher Pahan Rosethorn, and me. We're headed to Yanjing in the long run, and we're going to take Evvy back to her home province when we do." They'd discussed no such plan, but Briar thought it might give this high-and-mighty pair an excuse to back off before things got truly ugly._

_Lady Zenadia sat up straight and planted her feet on the ground. Bracing her hands on her thighs, she asked in a cold, chilly voice, "Do you think to defy me, _boy_?" _

_Briar didn't even blink under her hard stare. "Shall I take the larch home, my lady?" he inquired, rather than answer so foolish a question. Of course he was defying her. He would do it with pleasure and an overturning of all her carefully raked and planted greenery, if it came to that. It was time she learned that people who came from poorer homes were not toys to play with. _(Another excerpt. Once again, I didn't write it!!)

Briar's eyes opened. "Not another dream about what's already happened." He threw off the covers. "This is getting ridiculous." Briar swung his feet over the edge of his bed, and went outside. Tiptoeing through the hallway, he made his way to Sandry's room.

As he opened her door, he saw the soft glow that was her globe nightlight. Briar remembered when, almost six years ago, he, Tris, and Daja had created it using their powers to fill a small stone Tris had found with light. Briar smiled at the memory and quietly walked into the bed chamber.

He had barely taken two steps in the doorway when a sleepy voice mumbled from under the blankets, "Can't this wait until morning?" Briar flinched; he hadn't expected her to hear him enter.

"How did you know I was here?" he whispered.

Sandry sat up. "You don't honestly think that after years of with you, I wouldn't know your tricks?" she said between yawns.

"Right. Sorry, I forgot." Briar pulled up a chair and planted himself in it. "I wanted to ask your advice about something."

Sandry sat a bit straighter while her eyes brightened. She loved giving people advice, listening to their problems. "What's the situation?" she asked him cheerfully.

"It's about these dreams I've been having." Sandry's smile faltered a little. She'd hoped he'd wanted to ask about a certain stone mage she knew.

_Ah well, _she thought. _Dreams are fun to decipher too._ Briar told her of the dream he'd seen the other night.

When he was done, Sandry tugged one of her braids, deep in thought. "Hmm, didn't you say you've had dreams like this before?" she asked.

"Yeah, but they weren't the same," Briar answered.

"How so?" she questioned.

"Well," he scratched his head, searching for the best way to explain it. "In the other dreams, I was trying to bury these corpses. It was a nightmare. But the dreams I'm having now are different. They only show things that have already happened. Like," he paused. "Like it's trying to make me see something that I'd missed before."

"Tell me about your other dream," Sandry requested.

He then told her about the dream about Lady Zenadia that he'd just seen.

Sandry rested her hand on her palm. "These dreams of yours aren't ringing any bells in my mind," she said. "Do you remember saying or thinking something particular? Can you recall exactly what happened before you woke up?"

He looked up at the ceiling in thought. "Let's see. In the first one, I don't think I said anything at all."  
"Thoughts?" she asked.

"I think I was trying to convince myself I shouldn't be guilty about killing that mute because he was after me in the first place."

"Do they want you to feel remorse now?" Sandry said to herself. "But that doesn't make sense. It also doesn't add up with the other dream."

"I think I thought about Evvy also," he mentioned. Sandry's ears perked up.

She scooted closer to the edge of her bed. "What precisely did you think about?" she asked, trying very hard to mask her curiosity.

"I told myself that I shouldn't worry about the mute; I had to get Evvy first, because she was what mattered the most."

Sandry thought about this compared to the other vision. Realization dawned on her.

She felt her mouth twist up in a large grin. _So it's true, _she thought.

Briar frowned. "What're you so happy about?" he inquired.

Sandry's eyes went wide with shock. "You don't know what that means?"

"No," he replied.

"Not a clue?"

"Nope."

"Not even the slightest idea?"

"No, is there something you know that I don't?!" he demanded.

Sandry opened her mouth to say that she did in fact know something he didn't, but thought better of it. Instead she responded, "I'm just as stumped as you are." _Maybe it's better if he finds out on his own, _she thought. _I just hope that that will be sometime this year._

A couple hallways away, Evvy walked, desperately searching for a privy. Unlike most of the rooms at the Citadel, her bedroom did not have an attached bathroom. Sandry had apologized profusely, and, while Evvy had reassured the older girl that her room was fine, she couldn't help but imagine how convenient it would have been to have the place already there when she woke up, instead of having to hunt endlessly in this maze of a palace.

As she turned a corner, Evvy heard voices coming from down the corridor. She stopped, listening for who was there. Evvy then heard the voice break out in laughter. She almost bit her tongue when she realized who the voice belonged to.

_Pahan Briar? _she thought. _What's he...? _Evvy peeked around the corner. She blinked; there was no one there. Instead, she saw a small gleam of light through a crack in a nearby door. Evvy crept closer. She gasped as she recognized whose door it was.

Briar started to laugh. "You always were the worst liar," he said.

"That is where you are wrong my friend," Sandry said, wagging a finger. "Tris was always worse than me," she pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he agreed. "Anyway, why aren't you telling me what's going on?"

She sighed. "I know you are going to hate me for this, but I think it would be better if you figured out this particular predicament by yourself." At Briar's less-than-pleased expression, she put her hands in front of her. "It's just that, in your situation, I've experienced that people are better off to solve it on their own."

Briar raised an eyebrow. "So. What kind of situation am I in exactly?" he inquired.

"Oh no you don't," Sandry said, crossing her arms. "You have to do this **yourself**, remember?"

Briar sighed, exasperated. "Some help you are," he remarked.

Suddenly he heard a slight squeak in the direction of the door. His head swiveled to stare at where the sound had come from.

"What is it?" Sandry asked.

Still intently looking at the door, he replied, "Someone's out there."


	8. Midnight Run

Evvy, hearing this, flinched. _He knows I'm here, _she thought, taking a step back. _If he catches me, I'll be in big trouble. _Quickly she turned and fled down the corridor where she had come from.

Briar walked over to the door and pushed it open slightly. He gazed outside just in time to see a wisp of black hair disappear around the corner.

"Evvy," he whispered.

"Who was out there, Briar?" Sandry called from inside her room.

Briar answered, "It was...no one." He went back inside and said, "Uh, Sandry, I'm gonna call it a night. See you tomorrow." He then rushed out.

"Ok. Uh, goodnight then," said a baffled Sandry.

_What could she be doing out here? _Briar asked himself. _Well, I'll find out, whatever the case. _He sprinted down the long passage to his pupil's room.

Evvy ran through hallway upon endless hallway, bare feet beating the cold marble. She was gasping by the time she reached her room.

Once her breathing had returned to normal, she flopped on her bed and pretended to sleep. After a few moments, Evvy heard her door creak and a pair of feet take a few steps through the threshold.

"Stop faking. I know perfectly well that you're awake," Briar said. Evvy scowled and opened her eyes. "You shouldn't be up so late," he said sternly.

Evvy sat up. "**You** shouldn't be up so late," she retorted.

"What were you doing sneaking around Sandry's room?" Briar interrogated.

"What were **you** doing **in **Sandry's room?" Evvy shot back.

"That's not you business," he said tensely.

Evvy turned and looked out her bedside window. "I bet it isn't," she said. Briar moved to tell her something rude, but realization hit him.

"Are-are you....jealous?" he asked. Evvy stiffened. "Does it bother you that me and Sandry were in her bedroom....late at night....alone?" He smirked as he saw her flinch at the word 'alone'. For some reason, seeing Evvy jealous over him gave him an odd sort of pleasure.

Evvy turned on him. To Briar's surprise, her cheeks were red. "You think way too much Pahan-"she stopped. All of a sudden, she threw off the covers and made for the door.

In her hurry to get back to her quarters as soon as possible, she had forgotten the real reason she had been out there.

Briar, mistaking her motive for leaving, took hold of her arm. "Wait, if you're angry you-"he was cut off by Evvy's voice.

"You don't understand! I have to go!"

"Go? But..."

"I have to **go**!!" Evvy whined. Seeing the pleading in her eyes, he let her arm out of his grasp.

"Oh," he said, face starting to get warm. He followed her to the hallway outside her door.

Evvy bit her lip as she glanced up and down the corridor, debating on which way to go. Watching her, Briar asked, "Do you even know where one is?"

Evvy, not quite up to any sarcastic remarks at the moment, fidgeted helplessly and said, "No. The whole reason I was out here in the first place was to look for one."

"Come on," Briar said, grabbed her hand. "There's a bathroom in my room. You can use it." They ran, Briar slightly in front, towards the eastern wing.

A few minutes later, as they were leaving a flight of stairs, Evvy's foot caught on an uneven tile. She was sent tumbling to the ground, landing heavily on her right ankle.

Briar turned. "Are you okay?" he asked as he dashed to her side. He then started to help her to her feet. "You should be more careful."

She pulled out of his grip and stood on her own. "I'm fine. No cuts, no scrapes. Now, let's get going before-"Evvy felt the ankle she had fallen on give way. Briar steadied her as she teetered.

"No you're not. That ankle of yours needs to rest a few minutes."

Once again, she shook him off. "But I can't rest! I need to keep going!" She limped on ahead.

"You shouldn't do that!" Briar warned as he caught up to her. He wrapped an arm around her waist to prevent her from moving.

"Ack! Let me go! I won't make it if you stop me like this!" she protested, struggling to get out of his strong hold.

"Who said I was stopping you?" Before Evvy could ask what he meant, she was hefted up into his arms. "You're definitely not going to get there in time if you carry on like this," he said looking down at her. "Would you **please **stop being so stubborn and accept my help this time?" She only glared. She knew he was right, but she was** not **about to admit it to him.

Briar grinned. "Thank you."

As he started to run, he grunted, "You're getting heavy."

Evvy scowled. "Well excuse me!" she said resentfully. "If I remember correctly, you said I was too skinny when we first met."

"Yeah, and I also remember telling you that you were immature and weren't that pretty." Evvy looked up. "Though I'm not sure about the immature part, you've changed a lot since then," he concluded.

Evvy's eyes widened. _Did he just tell me I'm...?_

Her question went unanswered however, because Briar remained silent for the rest of the way.

"Here we are," he said as he set her down and walked her into his room. "Privy's over there, so I'll um...go."

When she was done, she walked outside to find Briar leaned up against a wall. As she stepped towards him, he got up and asked, "Need something else?"

Evvy wrung her hands. "I, uh no. It's just that um....I'm sorry, for what happened, for...listening in on what you and Sandry were talking about earlier. And then having to bother you for..."

Briar stopped her. "It's all right. We were just talking about stupid stuff anyway. And about this...incident, well...anyway, it's all right." He ruffled her hair with his hand.

Evvy's nervous look turned to one of annoyance. "I still hate it when you do that, you know."

Briar chuckled. "Darn. I was hoping you'd overlook that."

"Like I could overlook something like that," she said sarcastically.

"Well, at least you didn't hit me this time!" he said hopefully.

"Don't get ahead of yourself."


	9. Morning

A/N: I am SO sorry. I vowed over the summer that I would update at least once a week, but now that it has been like two weeks, I feel that I cannot keep up this oath; what with, school, dance (yes I take dance class), and just relaxation time.....I just can't find time anymore!! I will keep on writing, so don't worry about that. It will just be harder and the updates may become more and more spaced out. Good thing I'm nearing the end (oops! Was I supposed to tell you that?) Well, here we go again!-Jackie

"Pahan Briar!" Evvy yelled to the opposite side of the door. It was early morning and she had been assigned the difficult job of getting Briar out of bed for today. "Pahan Briar, your foster-sisters will be here any minute! Sandry says you have to get ready!!"

She waited for a response.

When none came, she pounded on the door several times, the force making the wood tremble. "There's no way you are still asleep! Come on OUT!!!" She stressed this by laying three last hard blows on the wood of the door.

Still no response.

Evvy gritted her teeth and kicked the door open. As she stormed in, she saw that Briar was sprawled on his bed, fast asleep.

Hands on her hips, she shouted, "PAHAN BRIAR!!!!! WAKE UP!!!" Briar snorted and rolled onto his back. Evvy glared and strode over to the sleeping boy.

Leaning over a bit to reach, she seized his shoulders and shook them rapidly. She hollered into his ear, "Wake up! Wake up! Wake—"

Briar turned over once again. Evvy, whose hands were still attached to him, was unexpectedly dragged with him, ending up in a very awkward position. She attempted to pull away, but it was already too late.

Evvy froze; her face was now mere inches from his. She felt a strong heat spread over her cheeks as she held her breath and stayed perfectly still—not so much from fear of disturbing him, but from sheer shock of being so near. Evvy stared, wide-eyed, at the boy underneath her.

He was still sound asleep, his breathing steady and quiet. His hair was hopelessly messy, but his face was calm and serene, like........

_Like a little kid, _Evvy thought. She spotted a stray lock of hair blocking Briar's face. She lightly swept it away.

She could smell a whiff of the plant life on him, the scent that she always could sense when she was with Briar. After a few moments, she could feel herself being hypnotically drawn closer and closer to him. She was only briefly aware of her own breath starting to slow. She could almost feel the warmth of his skin as her eyes fluttered closed....

"Evv...y," Briar mumbled. Evvy snapped out of her daze and opened her eyes. She nearly gasped when she saw how close she was to his face. She shot up to a sitting position and clenched her rapidly beating heart.

_What was I doing?! _she thought.

She looked down and saw, to her relief, that Briar was still sleeping. _Whew, he was just talking in his sleep about—_she felt her breath catch in her throat. _Me?_ she thought, startled.

Evvy heard Briar mutter something again. She looked out to the door hopelessly. She wanted to jump up and run, but she seemed to be stuck there for the moment, her legs having turned wobbly just a moment before.

"No..." he murmured, forehead creasing. "No!" he started to thrash in his sleep.

Evvy clenched her hands in uncertainty. She unsurely laid a cool hand on top of his in an attempt to calm him.

Suddenly, his hand clamped onto hers as he yelled, "Not her....please."

Evvy tried to pry off his clenching hand, but failed.

_He must be having a really bad dream, _Evvy realized. She made an effort to wake him up by shaking the arm that held her. Briar kept tossing no matter what she did.

Evvy bit her lip as she watched him, powerless to do anything.

Briar's mumblings started to become louder. Finally, his body went rigid as he sat up sharply and swallowed a scream.


	10. Another Side of Morning

_The Watch had already surrounded Lady Zenadia's house by the time Briar arrived. They had every gate under guard as other men stormed the entrance._

_"Evvy," he whispered. Briar tried to push past the guard, but one held him back._

_"I need to get in there!" he shouted at the man who stopped him. "My student, she..." his eyes widened in horror as he saw two guards struggling to hold the very girl he had been talking about. Evvy was trying to kick and punch her way out of the guards' hold, but she was quickly losing strength. What angered Briar the most was the look of terror on her face._

_"What are you doing with her?!" he demanded._

_The guard answered calmly, "She was caught attacking a member of the Watch."_

_Evvy spotted her teacher and screamed, half crying, "Pahan Briar! I didn't mean it, it was an accident! I swear! Tell them!!" Tears streamed down her face. "Please don't let them take me away!" She started sobbing._

_Briar went cold with rage. _

How dare they, _he thought. They had hurt Evvy; they had made the most stubborn girl he knew cry. The plant life all around started to tremble and shudder. Unlike the guards, they could feel Briar's fury and anger. They were afraid. _

_Briar shoved the official to the side and ran toward Evvy._

_Suddenly, he was being pinned by two muscular members of the Watch. He managed to hold them off by ducking under one's grip and breaking the other man's nose, but was soon overwhelmed when six new guards came to hold him back._

_Evvy screamed as she was thrown into the wagon used for carrying prisoners._

_"No!" he yelled, fighting back wildly against his captors. "No! Not her!" He surrendered as he watched the wagon totter off. "Please..." he added feebly._

_The scene changed._

_He was now standing in a stone room of some sort, with a window set into the wall on the opposite side. Standing in front of it, was a lady around the age of twenty dressed in an expensive black gown. She had ebony hair piled on top of her head, a few curls hanging down on the sides of her face._

_She had a pretty face with full lips and almond shaped eyes. Briar realized with a start that this mature older woman was Evvy._

_He was about to speak when he caught sight of her eyes. All of the warmth and fire that he had grown accustomed to seeing in her was gone, almost as if they had been snuffed out. What replaced them were cold, blank eyes; emotionless, like...stone._

_The older Evvy turned her back to him to look out the window and asked, in a detached voice, "Why didn't you come for me?"_

_"What...?" he began._

_"Was I so unimportant that you didn't even bother to rescue me when I was kidnapped?" she inquired, her voice still icy._

_"But I..." he faltered. _

Did? _He asked himself. _I did come...didn't I? _He wasn't so sure now. Events and memories were becoming more and more muddled in his head. He couldn't even remember what had led him into this small room in the first place._

_"You never came," she stated, her words as hard as brick. "You never came, and I was forced to live with Lady Zenadia for nine long years. I waited and waited, but you never came. You had left me. I've given up on you. Just like you did with me." She turned around to face him revealing those stone cold eyes that now looked at him with utmost loathing._

_"I don't know how I ever came to trust you."_

_The words bit Briar like daggers. _

_He didn't notice Lady Zenadia step from the shadows to stand next to Evvy. "You could never trust him. You trust no one." A corner of her mouth twisted upward in a smirk. "Not now, not ever." Evvy continued to look directly ahead with unseeing eyes. "Evumeimei has grown to be quite an attractive young woman. I'm almost sorry to have taken her away from you; you two could have made a rather charming couple." She giggled evilly._

_"How could you have done this to her?!" Briar shouted at the older woman._

_Lady Zenadia didn't even flinch. She smiled as she replied warmly, "I didn't do anything. It was the years of waiting and the inevitable disappointment that came with it that fueled her misery and hatred. I must say, it worked much better than anything I could have done." At his disbelieving expression, she replied, "Yes pahan, it was you, not me, who created this lovely pet of mine." She laughed outright when she saw his face change to anger. _

_"What will you do, pahan?" she asked tauntingly. "Even if you kill me, it will not bring back your Evvy. She will remain Evumeimei, my faithful servant."_

_Briar had had enough of her speech. "Shut up you twisted hag," he replied heatedly. Lady Zenadia's nostrils flared at the insult._

_"Evumeimei," she addressed the girl._

_"Yes my lady?"_

_"Dispose of him. He has slighted me for the last time."_

_For the first time they had been in that room, Evvy smiled._

_"Gladly." She raised her arm and pointed to the stone in front of Briar. It came up easily._

_A sudden sense of wrongness came over Briar._

No, _he thought. _This isn't right.

_The stone Evvy manipulated reshaped itself in midair to become a huge dagger. _

This is too horrible to be real.

_The stone knife flew to Evvy's outstretched palm._

This can't be real.

_Evvy grinned maniacally as she raised the stone level with Briar's heart._

_Briar chanced one last look at the older Evvy. Contorted by years of hate and depression, her face had a crazed glow to it. Her eyes were black voids, no feeling to be seen. She had grown thinner, her body more like a spider's than anything else._

_He had helped create this._

_He had helped in the process of making the spirited stubborn girl he knew as Evvy into this slave, this machine without feeling called Evumeimei._

_The stone blade sped through the air. The last thing Briar did was utter three words:_

_"I'm sorry, Evvy." _

_The dagger plunged into his chest._

Briar sat straight up in bed, swallowing a scream.

A/N: Woo hoo, that was fun to write. Lots of angst, just the way I like it. That entire dream sequence above was not by Tamora Pierce, but written by me. All your questions about why is this happening and such will be answered in the next chapter, so PLEASE don't barrage me with demands about the story!-Jackie


	11. Awkward Positions

Briar was panting. Staring straight ahead, he recalled what he had just seen.

That dream had been so real, so chillingly real that it scared him. It had been so life-like....and yet, it had never happened. It was not like the other dreams; the events in this new dream had never taken place in real life. This one had shown two alternate realities; a world where he had come too late to save Evvy at Lady Zenadia's mansion, and one –Briar shivered—where he had not come at all.

This new vision had been specifically about Evvy, that much he was sure of. The message behind it, however, was a bit cloudy for Briar to make sense out of.

They had seemed a bit like a warning to Briar. Almost like it was telling him to act, or something dangerous could happen to Evvy. What he should be acting for, he could not fathom.

Briar tried to run a hand through his sweaty hair, but found he was unable to. He looked down and saw that he was already clutching a small hand in his own.

Glancing up, he saw Evvy's startled face. She blushed a vivid red and stuttered, "I, I um....well I was s-supposed to come in to—"

"Evvy!" Briar exclaimed happily, pulling her into an enveloping hug.

Explaining the dream to himself had not been enough to soothe his uneasiness. However, seeing the Evvy he knew best sitting before him had erased all of his doubt and worry. Once he had caught sight of her, he knew that there was no need to be concerned.

"It was all a dream," he whispered, clasping her tightly, not daring to let her go for fear that pulling away a mere inch would cause him to lose her forever.

In contrast to Briar's joyfulness, Evvy was petrified. She was paralyzed with shock. Her heart beat so fast and violently against her chest that she wondered if Briar could feel it himself. She wished he would let go; the sudden flutterings in her stomach had begun to make her feel nervous. Evvy had never felt such sensations before, and the thought scared her.

It took all of Evvy's will to find her voice and squeak, "Pa-pahan? You're-you're squeezing the life outta me."

Briar, suddenly realizing how long he had been holding her, abruptly let go as if she were contagious with a disease. Briar felt his face burn. Horrified, he turned away and looked down. "Sorry Evvy. I just...." he trailed off.

Evvy was making escape plans in her head when she noticed Briar's earnest attempts at avoiding her gaze. Examining closely, she realized that her teacher's cheeks were splattered with red. Her own embarrassment was replaced by curiosity as she leaned in closer to validate her observation.

"Are you blushing?" Evvy asked, trying to catch another glimpse of face. Briar angled his head in the opposite direction, attempting to look anywhere but at Evvy's rapidly approaching face, fearing that if he did she would start laughing. Forgetting to ask himself why he cared about what Evvy thought, he made an effort to scoot as far away from the girl as he could.

This girl was not in a patient mood.

Evvy seized his wrist, dragging him toward her so she could look him in the eye. "And you say I'm fussy." She frowned and questioned, "What's wrong with you? You usually blush only when there're pretty girls around, unless....." Evvy eyed Briar's blankets suspiciously.

Briar's head snapped up. Ignoring his student's hint that something inappropriate had taken place, he asked hotly, "Pretty girls? How shallow do you think I am? If I'm not mistaken, there's one right—" He was cut off as Sandry burst into the room.

Smiling broadly she announced, panting in between, "They're here! Briar, Evvy you should—" Sandry's eyes enlarged when she saw the awkward position her two friends were in.


	12. Meeting Fire

A/N: Okee dokee. After a long, agonizing, stressful, tiring, boring, exhausting, and most of all unproductive period of time I FINALLY have a new chapter up. I'm really sorry. Truly. Honestly. From the bottom of my cold, black, malicious heart. Since I am in no mood for giving excuses at this point of time, I'd better just get on with what I've been dying to say, but, sadly, have been forgetting to write down. I reallyreallyreallyreallyREALLY do not appreciate pointless reviews! I know I've probably only received a total of maybe two, but I thought I'd let you know for future references. If you don't approve of a certain coupling (and mine are pretty obvious at this point) don't let me know about it! I am perfectly aware of the fact that not everybody likes certain people paired up with others. I understand that! I myself used to be a Sandry/Briar shipper, who converted to Tris/Briar-ism, and now after reading the last four books have made up my mind to be a fan of Evvy/Briar (and as you will read on, I also have some otherideas on who will end up with who ). And so, to end my long boring speech I'll just say this: Please don't leave pointless reviews about how 'wrong' my views are. Everyone's ideas are different, so please let me make up my own mind. Oh and a little note to everyone. Some of the lingo used in this chapter may not be quite 'right' for the time period/world the story is set in. I just thought I'd throw in some modern words that I thought the characters might say…..ah well, if you don't like it, hell with it. On with the chapter!

Sandry analyzed the situation at lightning speed in her head.

Evvy-kneeling on bed, holding Briar's hand

Briar-blushing and looking very uncomfortable.

Both-faces inches apart.

Conclusion- I seem to have walked in on something interesting.

Sandry's mouth twisted into a wicked smile. "Am I interrupting….?" She asked, the picture of pure innocence.

Briar looked from Sandry to Evvy to his hands, which were now being grappled by his student.

"Nothing!" he exclaimed, pushing Evvy off his bed sending her to the floor with a loud thump. "You weren't interrupting anything." Evvy, being very displeased at being pushed off a bed, scowled and crossed her arms over chest from her place on the ground.

"Daja and Tris? Here?" Briar hopped out of his blankets. "I guess I'd better get ready then." He then promptly strode out of the room still in his bedclothes, deliberately looking straight ahead to save himself from having to see Evvy's glare.

Sandry watched him leave and turned back to Evvy. "I don't understand…." she said as she offered her hand to the fallen girl.

Hauling herself up, Evvy snorted, "What's there to understand? He obviously thinks he's better than everyone else and doesn't need anyone's help. Walking out of here like he's the king of the world…." Evvy muttered as she dusted herself off. Sandry watched and wondered, not for the first time, about what had taken place between the two in this room.

Evvy was a little reluctant to meet Briar's other two foster-sisters. From what she had heard (Briar's opinion mostly) Trisana Chandler was a moody former merchant girl with weather magic.

Evvy winced. Merchant girls. She knew that type. Not even nobles and they thought they owned the world.

She shook her head. _I'm being paranoid_ she thought, frustrated with herself. _I shouldn't judge before I know them. _She smiled ironically at the thought. _Wouldn't I know that more than anyone?_

As Evvy entered the sunlit courtyard she saw that everyone was already there, giving their welcomes and greetings to the newcomers. Sandry had thrown her arms around a red-haired girl in glasses, sobbing happily into her shoulder as the other girl patted her back awkwardly. Briar was strolling over to a tall, dark-skinned girl of sixteen. Evvy followed a short distance behind.

The older girl smiled impishly as she saw her foster-brother coming. "How's it going, Thief-boy?" she asked teasingly.

Briar wiped away an invisible tear and clasped his hands to his chest. "It's been years since I've seen you and all you're withered, cold, bleak heart can do is call me names on our first meeting. Really, I'm heartbroken," he declared theatrically, lowering his head to depict his feigned sorrow.

"Mila, you're such an ass." The young woman exhaled in exasperation. "People really don't change, do they?" She smiled once more and gave Briar a one-armed hug. "It really is good to see you, Briar, no matter how spoiled you've become since I've been away."

"You two, Daj," he said replied.

Daja's gaze wandered to Evvy, who stood dutifully a few feet away. The Trader grinned and released her foster-brother. "Ah, the little stone mage-in-training. I've been waiting to meet you."

Briar turned. "Oh yeah. Evvy, this is Daja Kisubo; smith-mage and sort of a sister to me. Daja, this is Evvy, my student."

Daja looked at Briar thoughtfully. "I still can't believe you're a teacher." She sighed wistfully and patted Briar's head. "You're growing up so fast. It makes me feel old." Briar swiped his foster-sister's hand off of his skull with an annoyed look on his face.

"Why don't you stop worrying about your age and actually say 'hello' to Evvy?" he replied irritably.

The smith mage simply ignored Briar and smiled. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Evvy," she said formally as she bowed.

Snapped out of her daze, the young stone mage responded, "You too." She was halfway through a curtsy when Daja stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Please. There's no need for such courtesy," she replied to Evvy's expression of surprise. "Formalities just aren't my thing," the tall girl said sheepishly.

A sudden memory came to Evvy's mind.

A few days ago. Sunset, in this very same courtyard. She, Briar, and Rosethorn had just arrived. Sandry forcefully squeezing Briar in happiness as Evvy looked on with puzzlement.

_"Oh, be quiet, kid," she laughed. "Do you have any idea how long it's been?! And here you were thinking I would waste this moment on formalities?"_

Evvy nodded in understanding. Despite the two girls' drastic difference in status, Sandry and Daja were the same. _That's probably what Briar meant by them being "closer than friends",_ she thought. At this realization all of the anxious feelings Evvy held toward the Trader vanished.

"Ok. I think I can live with less politeness," Evvy said laughing.

"I see that you two are getting along just fine," Briar remarked. "Now all you have left to meet is Niko, a certain red-head and her…" the mage raised an eyebrow as his mouth twisted into a wicked grin. "…new friend." His smirk changed into an evil laugh.

Daja clicked her tongue in disapproval. "Yikes. She'd hurt you so bad if she knew what I know you're thinking." She shivered as she thought of the possible agony.

Evvy looked at them both quizzically. "Um, what exactly are you thinking?"

Briar and Daja exchanged nervous laughs. "Well, let's just hope for Keth's sake it isn't what Thief-boy makes it out to be," Daja answered. "She'd make his life a living hell," she snorted.

Evvy merely looked back up at the pair with more confusion. She suddenly felt as if she were sinking into more questions she didn't want.

"Keth?" she asked unsurely.

Briar exhaled noisily. "I guess we'd better meet the poor bloke now…." He chuckled evilly. "…while he's still happy," he added.

"Just keep in mind not to say things like that in front of them," Daja reminded her foster-brother. "She might not find it as funny as you do."

"Got it," he replied curtly as he guided Evvy in the lightening mage's direction.

"Hey Tris!" Briar shouted across the courtyard.


	13. and Lightning

With Briar at her back Evvy walked awkwardly toward the lightning mage. The girl turned, her sober expression softening with the faint smile that grew as she watched the approaching pair.

"It's been a long time," Tris remarked softly. She stepped forward so she could stand in front of them.

"You bet it has, Coppercurls," Briar answered as he gave his foster-sister a quick hug. As he let her go he asked, "What's it been? Two, three years?"

Tris closed her eyes and recited distinctively without missing a beat, "Two years and seven months exactly in three days." Then she added, "Give or take a few hours."

Briar raised a curious eyebrow at her precise answer. "You've been keeping track for that long?" he inquired, suspicion not leaving his voice.

Tris's eyelids jerked open. "Of course not," she retorted stiffly. "Counting months and days isn't that hard. Even an unperceptive person such as you could do it," the short mage sniffed.

Before Briar could come up with a sharp reply, a sophisticated older voice behind him grumbled, "Not even five minutes here and you two go at it. Could you please be civil for _ten _minutes maybe?" Briar rotated his torso to find Niklaren Goldeye, one of his former teachers, standing behind him. From what he could see, Niko looked as if he'd survived a ten year war. His eyelids drooped and bobbed up again like yo-yos (a/n: ok, I don't know if they had yo-yo's in Emelan. I really did try to find a better simile for those of you who care!). His shoulders drooped pathetically, and his normally perfect arranged garmentswere in dire need oftidying.

Despite his teacher's unusually shabby appearance, Briar beamed. "Hey, Niko! Good to see you, old man!" he greeted cheerfully.

The sixteen-year-old's merry spirits were not shared. On his tired face one of Niko's eyebrows twitched. "_Old_ man? I haven't been gone five years and suddenly I'm _old_ man?" he said, offended. The skilled vision-mage turned up his chin almost as crossly as his student had. He began to walk in the castle's direction. "I'm going inside to see Rosethorn," he declared.

Watching the man leave, Evvy could have sworn the mage had turned and raised an eyebrow at her in astonishment. _What could he be looking at?_ She wondered. She was about to ask her two companions about the strange occurrence, but, seeing as they had already moved on with their own conversation, she decided against it.

Once Niko had disappeared into the grand entrance, Briar broke the silence by remarking, "Kind of prickly about his age isn't he?"

Tris sighed. All air of discontentment gone, she spoke. "Traveling for so long has made him slightly moody. A nap in a real bed should do him some good." Tris's teacher's emotions and quick exits aside, the girl peeked behind Briar to look at Evvy. "Now, weren't you about to let me meet your student…?"

The tall boy began the ritual introductions. "Tris, this is Evvy, my student in stone magic, as I told you in my letters," he said curtly.

The stone mage in question stepped forward and bobbed a small curtsy. Tris's restrained smile brightened when she saw the younger girl. "It's wonderful to finally meet you. I've read some books on stone magic. It's fascinating," she said. Evvy nodded in agreement. Suddenly, the red-haired girl heaved a sigh. "I'm jealous," she stated. "You seem so well-mannered and easy to get along with." She looked over her shoulder, "Well, compared to my laggard of a student." she added dryly. Briar and Evvy peered in the same direction to see what their mage-friend was staring at.

Panting and wheezing heavily, a man in his early twenties crested the hill that led into the citadel's courtyard. On one shoulder he carried two packs; with a hand filled with children's toys, he balanced a shopping bag on his shoulder. A box was fitted under an arm, along with a small bag. On top of it all, perched on his head napping, was a miniature glass dragon. To Briar and Evvy, he seemed to be a living storage cabinet.

"Come now, Keth," the girl-master called to the young man. "The sun will set if you don't get up here soon."

After Keth had gotten through the gates he stared angrily at his teacher. Red-faced with fury and weariness, he shouted, "What in the name of all that is good possessed you! To leave me to carry **all** this—" he rotated his head to indicate all the items that were draped on him, "up **that** ridiculously huge hill—" he turned to denote the path behind him, "You didn't even send me a porter to help once you got up here! Don't you have an ounce of humanity!" he demanded as sweat from his climb poured down his face.

The lightning mage was not at all shaken by the sudden outburst. "What do you need a porter for? You're a man, aren't you?" she asked cruelly. "In that case, stop whining. Take all that up to our rooms," she ordered coolly.

"And what about you?" he growled, barely holding back another eruption. "Aren't _you_ going to take anything?"

Tris blinked innocently at him. "Me?" she asked with fake sweetness. "I've already taken my things to my room."

"Then what is all this I'm carrying?" he pleaded irritably. Briar watched the man, who was slowly caving in under Tris's iron resolve. He almost felt sorry for him, but his amusement at watching the exchange won over pity.

"Part of it is Glaki's belongings," she answered rationally. "You don't expect a six-year-old to carry that heavy pack, do you?"

"I guess not, but—"

"And Niko's been so moody lately that I thought it would be better if he didn't have to haul all his books and things. He would have been so cranky, we'd all have been unhappy once we got here," Tris interrupted

"Yeah, but what about—" Keth started.

The girl cut him short again. "There you go. I explained the situation in its entirety to you; you should understand. Now take those things inside. Quickly, now." She commanded. Thoroughly beaten, the man walked sullenly to the entrance.

Briar, in an effort to lift Keth's spirits slightly, said playfully, "Don't worry. She could be worse you know. She could be throwing lightning bolts at you." Keth, who hadn't realized there were other people present in the yard, turned to gaze at the boy. Ignoring the joke made, his eyes grew large with horror.

"Oh gods," he moaned painfully as he realized who had spoken to him. "There's another one." Without another word he staggered mournfully away, muttering about doomed fates and tyrant girl-teachers.

Tris clicked her tongue. "That was rude of him. He didn't even bother to meet you or Evvy," she said with disdain.

"Don't worry about it," Briar answered casually. "You mentioned someone named Glaki. Is she the one who has--?" Before he could finish his sentence, a small hand tapped him in the middle of his back. Startled, he turned to find a short, round-eyed girl staring up at him.

The little girl frowned as she distrustfully asked Briar, "You said my name, but I don't think I know you."

"Oh, so you're Glaki then?" Briar said. The girl nodded, still apprehensively, back. The young man grinned. Kneeling, he stuck out his hand for her to shake. "I'm Briar. I'm not sure if you already know who I am, but it is a great honor to meet you Miss Glaki," He said formally. At hearing Briar's name, the child's eyes widened in awe.

"You're Briar?" she asked; wonder plain on her face and in her voice. She took his hand in both her small ones. "Auntie Tris told me about her brother,Briar, that fought pirates and cured a whole plague and stole a tree right underneath someone's nose! Are you that one?" she inquired mercilessly.

Briar raised an eyebrow at the latter achievement, but responded to the child softly like a grandfather telling a story to his grandchild, "I would say all of that is true, except for the tree." He looked up at Tris, displeasure evident in his eyes. "Let me make one thing clear, I didn't _steal_ that tree. I saved it," he said convincingly. Briar continued his retelling of the infamous Shakkan incident to the enthusiastic Glaki (whom Briar had placed on his shoulders to help her listen to his story better) as the four finally made their way into the citadel's entry way.


	14. Ball

Um...please don't kill me for the ridiculously late update?

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Evvy gazed at herself in the mirror. Hair done up, makeup on her face, and wearing the most beautiful dress she had ever seen, Evvy believed this was the best she'd ever looked in her life.

She smiled broadly at her image, but it faded away just as fast as it had come. The dress's low neckline still irked her. She placed a hand on the exposed skin below her neck and sighed.

"If only it wasn't so…so, bare!" she said to herself. As if this declaration had been the key to solving the problem, Evvy rushed to her bed and began rummaging through her bags.

"Where is it, where is it…" Evvy mumbled to herself, parting piles of knick-knacks and clothes in order to see the bottom. A strand of hair fell from her up-do into her eyes. She blew it away. "Here you are!" she said triumphantly as she pulled out a rolled sheet of canvas.

The stone alphabet. The tool Briar had used to help teach her reading and writing…and the first gift Evvy had ever received.

She smiled at the memory and undid the ties. When it was unrolled, she stared at it thoughtfully. It had been months since she had last opened it. She ran a finger down the rows of neatly drawn letters and found the pocket labeled 'J'. Lifting the flap, she plucked out the stone inside.

Jade, the same gray-green color of the dress she was wearing.

Evvy's eyebrows shot up as she gazed at the stone in her palm. The color had also prodded another old memory. Jade eyes.

"Oh, that's right…"

Jade-eyed Boy. It was the label she had used for Briar until she had learned his real name.

Evvy closed her hand lightly around the stone and began to breathe deep. She concentrated her energy on the stone, trying to empty her mind. However, she couldn't help but smile as her thoughts lingered on the image of Briar's eyes and the way they had looked on the day she had first seen them, how the boy behind them had stirred a great curiosity in her, leading her to who she was today.

She opened her fist and looked at the gem. It had a teardrop shape to it now, with a small loop at its point. Evvy frowned.

It was a shade too dark to completely match her dress. In fact, it had become the exact shade as Briar's eyes. Evvy made a face at it.

"If anyone says anything," she muttered to herself as she dug out a silver chain from a pocket in her bag, "I'll tell them it was Pahan's fault my concentration was broken."

She crossed the room to stand in front of her vanity mirror as she hooked the chain's clasp. She stared at her reflection, gently fingering the amulet that now occupied the space in the neckline. She grinned.

"Well, at least it's a pretty color," she said as she left the room.

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Briar was leaning up against a wall on the far side of the hall, trying to convince himself that he wasn't hiding. Even though this ball was in honor of him, he felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Especially when the barker had announced him descended the stairs. He had tried to smile as dozens of pairs of eyes turned to stare at him, but he had found it extremely difficult.

"Lady Sandrilene fa Toren."

He glanced up to watch Sandry step elegantly down the staircase, smiling as naturally as she had done all her life. Briar smiled at the sight, a bit envious. Being noble certainly had its perks.

Briar saw that she was walking toward him. He gulped. She was wearing a face he didn't like.

"You seem to be having fun," she said icily.

"Uh…yeah, plenty," he tried to assure her. Sandry glared.

"So, after all the work I put into this party I suppose you plan to sit here and be a rock for the entire night?" she demanded.

"Of course not!" Briar said in mock horror. "Dear Sandry, I would never sit here and 'be a rock', as you so charmingly put it. I at least have the courtesy to stand." He desperately hoped that the little joke would be enough to get her off his back.

"Briar," she said, not amused.

He sighed in defeat. "All right. You caught me. I guess I'll dance a little." He flashed her one of his trademark, lady-killing grins. "Would you be so kind as to direct me to a large group of ridiculously attractive girls?" Sandry kicked him.

"Ow! Ok, I get it, I get it. 'Stop being such an ass, Briar,'" he said in an exaggerated girlish tone as he stalked off. He thought he heard Sandry irritably mutter the word 'men' once his back was turned.

Rubbing his shin, he glanced around the room and spotted a pretty brunette watching the couples waltz from a corner of the room. He smirked.

"I bet she's lonely," he said to himself. However, before he could make his way to her, he was stopped by the barker's voice once again.

"Miss Evumeimei Dingzai."

His head automatically turned to the stairs, his conquest almost immediately forgotten. The sight that met his eyes astounded him.

Evvy was…beautiful. There was no way around that fact. He knew she had certainly never been ugly, but not like this. This was…very different. Briar realized suddenly that he was staring and coughed, forcing himself to act more like an art critic than some smitten teenage boy.

"Sandry did some good work. I ought to thank her later," he said in the most offhanded manner he could manage.

He nodded with approval as he looked at her newly curled and piled hair, the hints of makeup that had been applied to her face, the green pendant that accented the dress's low neckline on her…**chest**?

Briar felt heat crawling up his neck and shook himself quickly. He looked around the room at the other gawking males and cursed Sandry. She could have chosen a more modest dress.

Briar inhaled sharply and whirled his head to look at whatever had just caught his eye. To his relief, it was just Evvy. He let out a breath. For a second, out of a corner of his eye, he could have sworn she had looked just like…no. No.

The dream from that morning came flooding back to him.

_…a lady around the age of twenty…ebony hair piled on top of her head…full lips and almond eyes…cold, blank eyes; emotionless, like…stone._

Briar began to panic. Was it going to happen tonight? Is that what it meant? What could he do? He began to push through the crowd to reach Evvy. Was there any way he could warn her?

Before he could get to her, someone held out a hand to Evvy first. Briar watched as she put her hand into the stranger's and nervously step out onto the dance floor. Briar stopped and scowled as he recognized who it was.

"Pasco."

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A year and a couple months? Has it really been that long since this was updated? Uh...what can I say...sorry? And the chapter's so short too. Ouch. Well, lemme just say to all you Pasco fans before you get worked up...it'll be ok in the end. Promise. Well, until next time, I suppose (whenever that'll be...)


	15. A Dance

I reread this fic a couple nights ago in what was supposed to be a fun, shameless romp through my middle school past...but instead I got somewhat unreasonably caught up in it. And then I realized I had never completed the story. So, because I am in a cabin in the woods for a week, I've decided to fulfill my pubescent wishes and finish this thing. So here I am, nineteen years old, continuing a fanfiction I started when I was thirteen. There's something really awesome about this.

"What do you want?"

Pasco winced, but kept his hand presented gracefully. "I'm just trying to be friendly," he said through gritted teeth, aware of the many pairs of eyes around the room that curiously watched their exchange.

"Well, why should I believe –?" But she had already caught a glimpse of Sandry's truth string peeking from his shirt collar. His pleading eyes told her there would be no fun in making a scene in front of this room of well-dressed and well-mannered people. She sighed. Reluctantly, she took his hand, and the two made their way onto the dance floor.

"I hope you know that this doesn't change anything," Evvy said offhandedly. "I still think you're a huge dung beetle. And if you think that my agreeing to dance with you was some sort of show of mercy, think again." As he took her up into the standard close hold of the waltz, she smiled wickedly. "I'm a terrible dancer." She then stomped on his handsomely slippered foot.

Pasco bit down on his tongue to keep from shouting the words the truth string was pushing from his throat. Silently grimacing in pain, he politely led her in a turn about the floor, cursing her existence as she smiled cruelly up at him. Now on his guard, Pasco worked to keep the rest of himself unscathed. Sidestepping her unwieldy feet and turning her awkward movements into some fancy dip or turn, they looked like one of the more elegant couples on the dance floor to any bystander, thanks in part to Pasco's magic.

Evvy noticed the awed stares of those around them, delighted in her newfound appearance of refinement. Even with the few impromptu dance lessons she had received from her teacher in preparation for their arrival in Summersea, Evvy could tell that Pasco was more than just merely skilled. His effortless movements not only showcased his own abilities, but neatly masked Evvy's clumsy inexperience as well. Evvy chuckled.

"You are more talented than I thought. Even I can't make you look bad," she remarked.

"I am a dance mage. The waltz isn't my favorite, but it does allow me to better hide your incurable two left feet." Evvy scowled. "Sorry," Pasco said hurriedly. "This cursed thing around my neck doesn't allow me to keep my trap shut. Which is part of what I wanted to talk to you about." Before she could make a rude comment, he continued, "I know it's not an excuse, but I lost control of my mouth this afternoon, just spouting every thought that came to mind. I kind of let it get the better of me." Evvy knew the beginnings of an apology when she heard one, but his next words astounded her. "I was scared."

"What for?" she blurted.

"I've been hearing about you for a while now. From your teacher, in his letters to Sandry. He talks about you all the time, how fast you learn, how hard you work, even how damn powerful your crazy rock magic is." At her glare, he said, "Believe me, that's a compliment. You sounded like such a prodigy. A perfect student. Not like me," he added bitterly.

Evvy gave an apologetic smile, thinking of the numerous times Rosethorn or Pahan Briar had decried her stubbornness or lack of delicacy during her lessons. "That's not at all true. There's no reason for you to think that–"

"You have to understand," he interrupted. "Sandry isn't just a friend or a sister or a –" he coughed, "–lover, or anything. She's my teacher. I owe Sandry everything, and I trust her like no one I've ever known." He was embarrassed to be revealing so much, but he knew he had no choice but to be honest with her. "More than jealousy, it was like messing with my religion."

As unusual as it sounded, Evvy understood this feeling. She remembered the day that, back in Chammur, she had granted Briar the honor of being the first outsider to enter her tiny home in Prince's Heights. She remembered the words she had said to the rocks that protected her squat, whispering the trust in her Pahan like a secret prayer.

"Magic aside, the bond I have with my teacher, in Sandry, it's almost…sacred." Evvy could see the way he struggled with the words. The truth string was still working full force. "So yes, I did. I went a little crazy. Maybe in my place you'd do the same, I don't know." Evvy thought about it, and shuddered inwardly. She didn't want to think about the chaos that would reign over her heart should her bond with Briar suddenly disintegrate. It was a terrifying thought. Still somewhat fighting the string, Pasco continued, "But I know my actions were…unreasonable." He stopped their waltzing and took a breath. "I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry and–"

Before he had the chance to finish his sentence, somebody had pulled Evvy out from his hold. Pasco stood, stunned, as a knife was thrust just a few inches from his face. Jade eyes blazed with unshakeable fury.

"All right, Dainty Feet, you just back away real slow. Don't give me a reason to cut you a wider smile."


	16. Misconceptions

Guess, what I did. I wrote another chapter.

* * *

From the moment Evvy had placed her hand in Pasco's, Briar had been watching the pair closely. He observed as Pasco twirled his student about the floor and was impressed despite himself. All of a sudden he realized Evvy had grown into a lady, and a very attractive one, if the amount of eyes staring in her direction were proof of anything. She wasn't the obstinate, raggedy kid he'd found in Chammur anymore, and she had grown tremendously as a mage since then. Maybe…she really could take care of herself. But the more he took in her mature appearance, the more his horrifying vision burned in his mind. He had to be sure.

Briar kept watching the two carelessly waltz around the ballroom when he saw the faintest of glimmers materialize around Pasco's feet.

There.

Briar concentrated his gaze on the ground and saw it again. This time it was clear. Magic swirled about the pair's feet like a layer of silver powder kicked up off the ground.

When Briar glanced back up to their faces, he saw that Evvy's expression was no longer full of suspicion. She actually seemed to be enjoying herself! Briar frowned. She couldn't be so chummy with this twerp just because he could perform a few fancy tricks on the dance floor. Magic feet or not, he couldn't be _that_ smooth. Briar began to make his way over to them.

Briar watched as the couple's turning began to slow, and Pasco said a few quiet words to Evvy. He saw the stunned, almost entranced look on his student's face and quickened his step. No namby pamby dance mage was going to bewitch Evvy. Not on his watch. He shoved through the crowd as Evvy and Pasco came to a stop. Briar saw Pasco lean in close to his student, and felt his blood boil. Before he knew it, his knives had slid into his palms.

Briar reached for Evvy and pulled her behind him, simultaneously thrusting one of his daggers into the space between himself and Pasco. "All right, Dainty Feet, you just back away real slow. Don't give me a reason to cut you a wider smile."

"Pahan!" Evvy yelped, mortified. Briar could feel the jovial atmosphere of the hall suddenly still and frightened murmurs rise around him, but he kept his eyes locked sharply on the bewildered boy before him.

"What's your game?" he demanded.

"Wh-what? I don't–"

"You heard me." He grabbed Pasco's shirtfront. "What are you playing at, Twinkle Toes?"

Suddenly, the threads of the cloth bunched in his hand parted, releasing Pasco from his grip and causing Briar to stagger back in surprise.

"Briar, what in Mila's name–" before Sandry could finish, she caught sight of Briar's pleading eyes.

"Sandry." The look he gave her, one of almost mad panic, told her everything. Her anger evaporated into disbelief.

"Briar, you can't mean…" She looked at Pasco, who was shaking his head in confusion. "This is a mistake," she said slowly, careful not to upset her agitated friend. "There's no way Pasco would ever–"

"You weren't watching," he interrupted. "Do you know what he was doing?" he demanded.

Sandry fought to keep from snapping back that she had, in fact, been watching carefully. She had been the one to order Pasco into apologizing to Evvy, and had observed their dance with delight, applauding Pasco's clever use of magic to hide Evvy's shortcomings. She had even giggled a bit when she noticed Briar angrily making his way over to the pair, mistaking his behavior for harmless male posturing. That is, until he pulled a knife on her student.

"You need to calm down." She glanced at Pasco and motioned for him to leave.

"Sandry, you don't understand…" he said angrily, watching helplessly as the object of his aggression quickly escaped from view. Sandry held him back, softening his fury with soothing words.

"Pahan, what is going on?" Evvy didn't like the look on her teacher's face. When he didn't answer, Sandry glanced between the two curiously.

"You still haven't told her, have you?" she asked quietly.

"Told me…?" Evvy looked fearfully up at her teacher. Sandry pulled Briar aside.

"They've gotten more violent, haven't they? The dreams?" she whispered. "This is more serious than I thought. If Evvy is in some sort of danger, she has a right to know," she implored. "You can't just stab anyone that gets close to her." Briar smiled faintly. Sandry was shocked to see her foster-brother so pale, but kept her tone even. "I'll take care of your mess in here, but it's important that you talk to Evvy. Now." She squeezed his hand encouragingly and led him to a side entrance, beckoning Evvy to follow him out.

After she shut the door behind the two, she tried her best to appear collected and in control to her startled guests, but the altercation between Briar and her student greatly disturbed her. It was clear that Briar's nightmares weren't simply a manifestation of pent-up romantic feelings. She had underestimated their true significance, and that frightened her. She only hoped that the trust between student and teacher would somehow be able to find a way to prevent the seemingly imminent danger.

As she calmed the party guests, she saw that Daja and Tris were making their way over to her, concern clearly marked on their faces. She smiled thankfully at their approach.

"What's going on here?" Daja asked, placing a comforting hand on her foster-sister's shoulder. Sandry gripped it gratefully.

"Briar's been…on edge lately." She informed them of his recent nightmares. "I'm scared for him. He's so panicked, I'm afraid he might end up hurting someone…or himself."

"Not him, her." Tris observed suddenly.

"Tris?" Sandry exclaimed, more scared than shocked.

"Whatever it is, it starts and ends with her. Evvy," she said quietly. "I would be more concerned about her power than Briar and his hand knives."

"Evvy? You don't think–?"

"There's something about her," she said thoughtfully. "Niko noticed it this morning. She is extremely powerful. But more than that," she added, "She's…shaky. It's hard to explain. Her hold on her magic, it's all concentrated in one unstable source." She gave them both a stoic look. "I would watch her carefully. I have a feeling that the danger in Briar's dreams is closer to home than he thinks."

As she said this, a crash thundered in the courtyard.

* * *

Jealousy, a glamorous ball, unstable magic and angst! Why did I ever stop writing this story?


	17. Breaking

The door shut behind them. Silence stretched uncomfortably between teacher and student as they stood alone in the courtyard. Evvy hugged herself in the chilly night air.

"Pahan, please tell me what's going on," she implored. Briar looked away, hesitant to answer. "Pahan?"

"Evvy, I…" He stopped. He was having trouble finding a way to talk about his dreams without confessing too many revealing details. And so, like many a teenage boy, he avoided the subject altogether. "What were you doing with Pasco?" he asked her abruptly.

Evvy didn't like where this conversation was headed but replied anyway. "We were just dancing."

"He was using magic, Evvy."

"Dance is his magic," she defended. "He was only making us look better out on the floor. You know how I am with the waltz."

Briar was unconvinced. "That's not what it looked like to me, him getting all cozy with you. You can't tell me that you're really warming up to him? Willingly?" he added incredulously.

Evvy looked scandalized. "He was apologizing! That's all! I can't believe you'd think…There's no reason for you to be acting like some jealous little boy!" she exclaimed.

Briar visibly bristled at this comparison, and retorted hurriedly, "I'm not jealous! I'm just trying to keep you safe! You have no idea what I'm feeling, what I'm seeing every night!"

"Then tell me!" Evvy pleaded. "Don't think I haven't noticed lately. This morning…" she began, but couldn't quite bring herself to finish her account of the events that had transpired earlier. Instead, she gave him a frustrated glare. "Stop trying to hide things from me. I'm old enough to handle it!"

Surprised at this outburst, Briar looked at his student for a moment. Even without the makeup and intricate hairdo, he could clearly see the fierce young woman Evvy had become. She was right. He took a deep breath in defeat.

"I...I've been having these dreams lately, warnings more like. About you," he admitted. "They were pretty tame at first, just replaying moments from the past, from Chammur, when I first met you." The next part of his explanation was harder to divulge. He avoided her eyes nervously. "But recently they've gotten more serious, more…creepy." He breathed a sigh of annoyance. "I don't know. I've been seeing scenes of things that could have happened back then, but didn't. Like if I hadn't come to rescue you from Zenadia's when I did."

"Rescue me?" Evvy sounded surprised.

"Yeah. You were deranged, in my dream," he continued. "Mila, you were scary. Completely cold-blooded." He stopped when he saw the mildly skeptical expression on his student's face. "Curse you, Evvy! Don't look so damn indifferent. This is serious," he said reproachfully.

"I'm sorry, Pahan," Evvy began, "but your dream, it's unreasonable." She smiled regretfully. "I don't want to poke holes in your vision, but back then at Lady Zenadia's, I was already fighting before you got there." The look she gave him was grave, but honest. "With or without you, Pahan, I would have escaped myself."

Briar was taken aback by this declaration. "Evvy, stop trying to turn everything I do into some sort of insult!" he exclaimed angrily. "I'm trying to protect you. You just don't understand–"

"No, you don't understand!" she retaliated. "Why do you keep insisting that I need some sort of protector? In Chammur and even now, your feelings about me haven't changed, have they?" Her voice had taken on an infuriated tone. "You just can't seem to accept that I'm not this helpless little girl!"

"I don't think you're helpless, it would just be better if you'd–"

"What?" she cut in. "Let you protect me? Fight my battles for me?" Evvy seethed at the insinuation. "Whatever you think these dreams are telling you, rest assured that I will be able to take on anything nasty that comes my way." Evvy bunched her hands into fists and raised her chin defiantly. "Like it or not, I'm almost done learning from you. I'll be a fully-fledged pahan myself soon, and I won't need to cower behind a teenage boy and his knives anymore, you can be sure of that!"

Briar felt his temper rise. If he weren't so tense with the threat of imminent catastrophe, he might have been proud of this overly loud, obstinate speech. What he might have deemed admirable and somewhat praise-worthy was nothing but exasperating and insufferable in his wound up state. He gritted his teeth. He was beyond patience.

"You think this is some kind of chance to prove yourself, do you? Just shove me aside and take this all on your own, right?" he asked her cynically. "Lakik Trickster take you! Stop acting so, so–"

"What?" Evvy prodded. "Acting like what?" she shouted.

"Stop acting like such an ungrateful little street brat!" he exploded. "Mila, It's no wonder your parents sold you before you learned to argue! If I had known you'd be such an intolerably mule-headed little chit of a girl, I'd have left you in the slums where I found you!" He felt giddy with rage as he continued the tirade, "Then you'd be taking care of yourself, by yourself, like I know you've always wanted!"

In the deafening silence that followed, Briar jumped at the sudden, grating sound of rock scraping against rock. When his attention turned back to Evvy, he felt himself go completely cold with the limitless feeling of guilt. His student appeared frozen with shock, the most indescribable look of pain etched on her features.

"That's what you think of me," Evvy uttered quietly but steadily. Her eyes were wide and glassy with tears that she stubbornly refused to let fall.

The sight paralyzed Briar. He could hardly breathe with the shame of his words pressing down on him. How could he have said those things? Running off words like "ungrateful" and "chit," as if he had never known life on the street himself, as if he were somehow better than her? How could he have possibly said those impossibly cutting words to the very girl he was trying to keep from harm? He took a step toward Evvy and held his hand out apologetically.

"Evvy, no. I–"

"Don't come near me!" she cried. Briar's lightning instincts surged, quickly recoiling his hand just in time to evade a spike of stone and earth that erupted violently from the ground. The display of hostility stunned him into silence.

"This is your opinion of me, is it?" Evvy demanded. "After everything…all the lessons, the gifts…" She looked down, fingering the jade amulet hanging from her neck. The tears she had been holding back escaped down her cheeks one by one. "It doesn't matter what I look like or how I've changed, all I am to you is this pathetic charity case from Chammur, a poor little brat who should be constantly grateful," she spat the word bitterly. The lethal spike created out of her sudden rampant emotions grew sharply as she said this. Evvy was staring at her feet, but Briar could see that her gaze had suddenly turned hard, her eyes becoming dark and fathomless. Dangerous. The sound of crackling could be heard throughout the courtyard. Statues, stone fountains, granite walls, white flagstones…every rock around them was growing a spiderweb of cracks on its surface.

"Evvy, get control of yourself," Briar pleaded over the din of rupturing stones.

"Why, am I scaring you?" she asked brutally. Every stone, rock, and pebble shattered into a thousand fragments, showering Briar in a merciless hail. Through the rock storm, he caught sight of his pupil and broke out in a cold, fearful sweat. Her black eyes, her stoic demeanor among the racket of stones…it was as if Briar had unconsciously slipped into one of his nightmares.

"No…" Briar breathed. This was it. This was the disaster he had been working so hard to prevent. There had been no monstrous villain out for blood, no assassin lurking in the shadows. It had been himself. He and his vicious words had hurt Evvy, causing the pain and chaos now wreaking havoc in her mind and her magic. And now she was slipping into darkness.

Sharp pain pierced the inside of Evvy's temple. She felt her magic ricocheting uncontrollably inside her, but she numbed herself to the sensation as she said, "All this time, I always thought…" She stopped as she clutched her head in agony. The raw energy of her fury and heartbreak was proving too powerful to be contained. "I always thought I actually meant something to you." She dropped to her knees. The stone in the garden surged with her wild power. Rocks crumbled, crashed, and flew through the air, a physical manifestation of the pandemonium in Evvy's heart. Broken granite swirled around her in a deadly cyclone.

"I don't know how I ever came to trust you," she sobbed.

The words wounded Briar in a thousand ways, infinitely more severe and crushing than they had ever felt in his nightmares.

* * *

This is the chapter I always looked forward to writing. Glad I finally got here.


	18. Control

Only three chapters left.

* * *

Tris, Daja, and Sandry burst forth from the ballroom into the war-torn courtyard and took in the scene before them. They saw Evvy kneeling in the rubble, a tornado of dirt and rock encasing her in a lethal fortress. Briar stood a few yards away, shielding his face with his hands, readying himself for a headlong run into the whirlwind. Daja rushed over and quickly blocked him from this endeavor, using her Trader staff as a barricade.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked sternly, but calmly.

"Get out of the way! I need to get to her." Briar tried in vain to shoulder his foster sister out of his path, but she had the advantage of height and traction. "I need to tell her–"

"Briar, stop." Sandry had appeared behind him. She touched his shoulder. "I don't know what's happened, but running into that storm will only get you killed!"

Briar struggled against their holds. "There isn't another way!" he exclaimed.

"Not without distance." All three looked at Tris, who had already undone one of her weather-holding braids. Her eyes peered passively into the mayhem as she slowly raised an arm. "If I can get a clear shot, I can stun her before she does any more damage." Lightning played dangerously in her fingertips.

At the suggestion of harming Evvy, Briar found his strength and broke free of his captors, seizing Tris's arm.

"No." He winced at the needle of pain that shot through his hand. Tris raised an eyebrow. "This is my fault. Please…Let me handle this." He gave her a pleading look. Tris searched his face a moment, and Briar thought that she might actually shock him into submission. Suddenly the lightning in her hand faded. "Thank you," he said dumbly.

"But the moment things get out of hand, do not expect me to stand idly by," she said crossly. "I will not see my brother ripped to pieces tonight." With this, she untied another braid, releasing a furious gust of wind. She bonded it to Briar's body, where it formed a protective sphere around him, deflecting bits of flying debris. "You have two minutes until the wind escapes," Tris instructed him sternly. Briar nodded and stepped into the tempest without another word.

"I don't understand," Daja said suddenly when Briar had disappeared. She gazed at the chaos before them in awe. "This reaction, I know it's emotionally charged, but I've never seen magic, or anything, become this…intense."

"She's in love with him, isn't she?" Tris said abruptly. Sandry choked at the remark, unable to give a graceful answer in the face of such bluntness. The look on her face told the other two everything they needed to know. Tris rolled her eyes and adjusted her spectacles impatiently. If there was one thing she'd never dabble in, it was love. She knew how passionate emotions could royally muddle magic if one wasn't careful. "Briar should know better than to break the heart of a girl who could kill him," she remarked callously.

As Briar fought against the stone hurricane in his protective bubble, he saw that Evvy was already desperately trying to regain control of her magic. Sweat gathered at her temples as she released uneven breaths of dusty air in an attempt to keep the cyclone at bay through concentration. Evvy was only barely succeeding; the storm failed to swallow her completely, but her fine dress was being viciously torn apart in the wind, and her skin stung as flying bits of rock peppered her with painful cuts.

"Evvy!" Briar called out to her. The cyclone quavered dangerously at the sound of his voice, like an animal suddenly aware of a threat. Briar advanced cautiously. "Can you hear me?"

"Has the great Pahan Briar come to call on this lowly street girl?" she asked resentfully, feigning surprise. "I would curtsy, but I'm afraid I just don't deserve the honor being done to me." Even in great peril, the girl still had her bite. She tried to force a small laugh, but she choked it as the cyclone started to push against her magical barriers. Evvy shut her eyes tightly and once again tried to regain focus.

"Evvy, listen to me." Briar could barely make out her form among the swirling dust, but his magical sight could clearly see the terrifying swell of silver light that was her rampant power. "Let me help you get control of your magic again. Evvy, please… please trust me," he pleaded with her above the racket of the storm.

At these words, the cloud of silver suddenly surged into an inferno, her power suddenly amplified tenfold. Briar had to shield his eyes against the intensity. "Trust?" The word sounded strange from Evvy's mouth. "You think that has any meaning for me at all anymore?" she roared furiously. Rage had infiltrated her thoughts, and in turn the dark, powerful element crept poisonously through her magic. The flying rocks and pebbles that had caused such angry cuts and gashes were joined in the air by fist-sized stones and hunks of broken marble from around the garden.

"Evvy, please…" he said helplessly as felt his wind-encased bubble begin to shake against the escalated assault.

"You know what I wish?" she yelled. "I wish you'd never taught me about magic. I wish you'd never set foot in Chammur, I wish I'd never laid eyes on you!" She covered her face with her hands. "I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel anything, not anymore. I wish…I just wish…"

Briar watched in horror as a huge slab of snow white marble rose apart from the other stones and stopped high above Evvy's small form, awaiting another surge of power to launch it onward to a catastrophic destination. With the grisly conclusion of his most recent dream in mind, Briar readily believed that Evvy's magic meant to annihilate him. He braced himself for a harsh crash to his bubble, but Evvy's next angry words were not directed at him.

"I wish I were dead!" she screamed.

Briar realized with a start that he was not the target for this lethal blow. The stones, Evvy's magic was now completely beyond her conscious control. It had turned on her, and she was about to feel its fury herself. Briar could still escape its wrath; the winds that protected him quivered with an eagerness to escape his hold, but he knew he still had time. He estimated about ten seconds, just enough time to dash out of the slab's collision course for Evvy.

But in that split second of panicked preparation, the whirlwind of dust had cleared enough for Briar to briefly see Evvy's face as she knelt in her deadly cyclone; her dark eyes, her mussed hair, her torn and dirty clothing. In that moment he knew it was too late to get away. That small glance had told him everything. Were he to escape, this would be the last time he would ever see that face. Even streaked with tears and dust, marred with pain and anger, that face was too precious to him to run from. He could never leave her.

Briar knew his ten seconds were up, but he didn't care. All that mattered was getting to Evvy before the rock did, and it was this singular thought that fueled his charge into the eye of the storm. Almost as soon as he was close enough to touch her, his protective bubble evaporated, leaving him open for the pitiless stones to attack him from every angle. He didn't wait to feel the stab of the bombardment as he swiftly grabbed his student before she could voice even the smallest word of protest. Briar held her tightly against his chest as he careened back into the cyclone. The slab of marble that had almost ended Evvy's life brutally knocked his shoulder, and he gritted his teeth against the pain.

Fighting both his student's furious protests and the flying rocks that slashed and bruised his body, Briar staggered desperately through the chaos to get back into the open air. As he neared the edge of the storm, Briar didn't see the large jagged stone that hurtled towards him. It knocked his head savagely, and for a few moments Briar could only see white patches in his vision as the searing pain shuddered through his body. He felt himself going limp with disorientation, but he staggered on drunkenly a few more steps, finally collapsing as he broke free of the cyclone's perimeter.

"Get your hands off me!" Evvy exclaimed, wriggling out from his hold. She had more sharp words in store for him, but they died in her throat when she saw the blood spilling down her teacher's face onto his clothes.

"Evvy…" he whispered. He coughed, and a spray of blood flecked his shirt. Evvy winced.

"Don't." she started.

"Evvy, I'm so sorry." His vision was fogged; Briar couldn't tell what expression was on his student's face. He felt for her hand and weakly held it in his own. "I didn't mean it. Any of it. I know I don't deserve to be…you don't have to trust me, Evvy. Just know that I…" Briar felt sick from the sensation of spinning. He took a deep breath to steady his swimming brain. He suddenly couldn't remember the events leading up to the encounter in the garden and wondered vaguely if he were dreaming again. "Believe me when I say I…I've always cared about you. Always." He shut his eyes to ease his muddled mind, letting himself drift serenely into black. "I mean…I love you too much not to," he muttered absently.

The moment the words were out, Evvy's killer storm halted. Every rock and stone that had been forced into the magical onslaught suddenly dropped lifelessly out of the air. Evvy's eyes widened in horror when she saw the slab of marble that was embedded in the ground where she had been on her knees just moments before. She turned back to her teacher for some kind of explanation, but his unconscious form awoke another, more acute fear within her.

"P-pahan…" she stuttered uneasily. "Pahan, this isn't funny." When he didn't answer, she shook him angrily. "If you're trying to make me say sorry, or…or feel guilty, then…" she trailed off as she realized his blood had run onto her hands. He wasn't waking up. "Stop it!" she yelled at him. "You can't do this! You can't just say things like that and just expect me to…to…"

But she couldn't hold her anger together any longer. Her hands shook as she clutched tightly to his shirt.

"Pahan, please! Don't do this!" she sobbed over him. "Open your eyes!" she cried.

"Stand up," a chilly voice commanded. When Evvy didn't answer, a biting wind ripped through the residual dust clouds in the courtyard. The air was now clear enough for Evvy to see the pair of flashing grey eyes that instantly paralyzed her with fear.

"I said, _get up_," Tris demanded again. Evvy laid her teacher gently on the courtyard floor and scrambled to her feet as the red-haired girl stabbed a finger at her. "How dare you call yourself a mage," she said brutally. "Do you even know just how dangerous you are?"

"I…I know I lost control," Evvy admitted feebly. She stared at her feet, shame pounding in her heart.

"No." Tris gave her a stern look. "You never had control to begin with." When Evvy only stared in confusion, Tris continued, "You placed all of your magical control in your relationship with Briar, didn't you?"

"Well, he's my teacher–"

"Yes, he's your teacher, not your cursed magical _dam_!" Tris exclaimed, infuriated. "A mage's power is their own, not anyone else's. Magic is a part of _you_; not something to be thrown around with an erratic boy like Briar," she said disapprovingly.

"That's not fair," Evvy protested. "He knows me! He took care of me, taught me, fed me, saved me…"

"But he doesn't own you, Evvy," Tris said quietly. "Magic doesn't take well to being owned."

Tris felt her foster sisters approaching and turned to meet them as they emerged from the last cloud of dust. When she had swiftly directed them to the scene of destruction, she frowned.

Before Tris had had a chance to explain the heart of the situation to Evvy, she had disappeared.

* * *

Guess what. I love angst.


	19. Guilt and Memories

I'm 21. I don't care. I can't escape the need to fanfic.

* * *

Evvy tottered aimlessly through the streets. It had been at least twelve hours since her last meal, but somehow she couldn't even muster the energy to feel its effects. Her fine dress was in rags, blood and dust hopelessly crusting what fabric remained. Her silk slippers had long turned to dirty tatters, and ugly blisters covered her feet. But all she felt was dizzying nothingness, inside and out.

Mothers clutched their children closer at the sight of her, and men leered when she passed. She was a mess. But she couldn't care. She kept walking through the darkest alleyways she could find, robotically placing one dirty foot in front of the other.

She stumbled as a sharp stone pressed into a raw blister, and she fell hard against a dirty wall. She had become weaker than she thought. As she pushed herself upright once more, the chain she wore snagged against a rough patch in the wall and broke. The jade pendant slipped from around her neck. She could only stare stoically as it clattered miserably away from her on the flagstones. The beautiful grey-green color of the stone shimmered and began to melt before her eyes, a watery jade pool. Evvy realized she was crying. She touched her face, feeling the warm tears on her fingertips. She hadn't thought there were any left to shed.

_Pahan is dead_, she thought numbly. _And I've killed him. _The jade stone cracked in two pieces.

_I should die too._

The hollow groan of shifting rock surrounded her, but Evvy didn't flinch. She couldn't summon the strength to reign in her wild power ricocheting through every fracture it could find, and she couldn't summon a reason to care. What good was a rock mage anyway? Only destruction, greed, and vanity ever came of power with stone, she thought. Wouldn't it be better to rid the world of such an inherently devastating gift?

The sound of scraping rock made her bones ache. _Why are you doing this?_ the gritty stone walls seemed to ask as they fought against her raw power. She didn't answer, and she continued to let the deadly energy flow unchecked out of her. The stone continued to protest loudly against the violent assault.

"I don't care," she whispered bitterly. "I don't care if this whole city comes down around my ears."

Just when she thought she might get her wish, a child's terrified screech cut the air.

Startled, Evvy whirled around and saw the frightened child kneeling beside a fallen body. A dislodged tile from an overhanging ledge had struck the man. Evvy watched in horror as the girl sobbed and screamed and tugged at his clothes.

"Papa! Papa, are you all right? Please, wake up!" she begged.

Evvy felt sick, unable to breathe beneath the weight of her guilt. Calling up the last seed of her strength, she frantically clutched at the rampant strands of her power and yanked them savagely back to her. Evvy turned and ran before she could see the man sputter and begin to stir.

_Stupid! _she berated herself. _You selfish, horrible, worthless thukdak!_

She ran out of the alley into a sun-soaked plaza. People filled every square foot of the place. She watched as children chased each other around a weathered marble fountain. Their mothers scolded them with smiles in their eyes as they did the weekly washing. A young couple strolled lazily through the square, holding each other's fingers and sneaking secret longing glances. Vendors advertised their wares in loud, bragging voices. A young man argued hotly with the blacksmith over the price of a kettle, while an old woman sat cackling as she watched the scene a few feet away.

There were more, dozens more faces and lives, and Evvy took them all in, every single one of them. She saw that almost all the buildings surrounding the plaza were built from huge, unforgiving blocks of granite or cobbled from fist-sized fieldstones. The wave of nausea she felt in the alley almost made her retch as she imagined it all coming down on the scene before her. She knew the whole city had similar architecture.

Summersea was a deathtrap so long as Evvy remained within its walls.

If there was one thing she had learned from her time with Briar and Rosethorn, it was a profound respect for life, and the power she fostered to protect it. She remembered how she had thoughtlessly crushed a blooming forest lily while hurling rocks in the woods with her magic. Rosethorn and Briar both had scolded her for a careless, unfeeling brute. Evvy could still recall Briar's gentle hands as he used his power to coax the feeble thing back to life, and the self-loathing that had filled her when she thought of her own magic in comparison.

"I hate my magic. I can't do anything good like that for anyone," she had wailed, the shame stinging her eyes. She was still a child then.

"Hey, it's all right. No harm done," Briar tried to reassure her. When she continued to sniffle, he rubbed a hand on her back roughly. "Listen, as mages we've been given many different, great powers," he began brightly, seizing the opportunity for another lesson. "But it is up to us to find ways to use it, to fit into the world, and…contribute. And I know that sounds really pompous and everything, and I mean I'm still figuring it out myself..." When the puzzled look in her eyes only deepened, Briar sighed. He had been little better than a child himself.

"Ok, forget the magical preaching. Here it is, the key to happiness." He held up the three fingers and counted off, "Love what you do. Love who you do it with. Love what you say with it. Whether with rock or plant magic, do those three things and you'll definitely be doing good for a lot of people." He laughed at her awed look. "I stole it from a kid's book. Don't look so impressed." He ruffled her hair.

Evvy smiled sadly at the memory. Pahan Briar was gone, but she would not sully his precious memory by trampling everything he taught her.

_He would have killed me if I had collapsed that building on myself_, she thought grimly. _He'd give me the worst lecture if he knew how careless I've been._

She took a few deep breaths and concentrated on a pebble that lay a few inches from her toes. Lack of sleep and food made her head ache, but she forced her focus to remain squarely within the pebble.

After a few seconds, it vibrated, then shattered. Evvy looked on in dismay. Her magical control was as fractured as the pebble that now lay in a dozen pieces at her feet. She would have to weave the ragged threads of her magic together one by one, piece by piece, rebuilding and rediscovering her magic. It could take hours, perhaps days to do it properly. And if the weather mage Tris had been right, and she had never had any real control to begin with, she would have a lot of work ahead of her.

_And once I've done that,_ she thought,_ I'm leaving Emelan._

* * *

_Evvy stopped in front of a shallow niche formed by one chunk of stone overlapping another. She rested her forehead against the stone, her back to Briar._

_"I know he's a stranger, but he's a good stranger," she murmured to the stone. "He's my teacher. He's safe."_

Briar blinked in the white daylight of his bedchamber. He smiled sleepily. A pleasant dream for once. His eyes scanned the room under heavy lids; it must be nearly midway through the afternoon. Why had no one come to awaken him? He knew he should be annoyed, but instead he felt strangely serene. A heavy blanket of calm settled over him, and he was content to stay unmoving. He let his thoughts drift. What kind of Trickster-blessed night had happened to cause such an uncharacteristically sluggish morning? He smiled at the recollection that the fine wine served at Sandry's ball was a most likely culprit.

A lead weight dropped into the pit of his stomach. The hazy contentment that had filled his body suddenly fled.

The ball.

Sweat gathered at his temples and on his back as the horrifying memory began to take shape in his mind.

Evvy.

He shot up in bed.

Evvy. Hurt, almost killed, by the thoughtless words he had thrown all around her.

Briar threw off the covers and swung his feet gingerly over the side. He winced. He hadn't noticed his wounded shoulder bound up in a sling or the thick bandage wrapped tightly about his head. He swayed.

The only image he could call to mind was Evvy, her features wracked by betrayal and rage. He had to find her, to tell her how sorry he was. More than tell her, _beg _her to believe in his searing regret. She didn't have to forgive him. That, he knew he didn't deserve. But he would do absolutely _anything_ to get her to merely accept his guilt.

He took a slow, cautious step toward the door. The world spun. He put out a hand to steady himself, knocking a washbasin off its stand and sending it crashing to the floor.

The sound of it shattering mixed with Briar's grunted curses brought someone sweeping into the room. His eyes refused to focus on the visitor, but when hands began to push him back into bed, he managed to fight against them weakly. Unfortunately his limbs would not cooperate for long, and he swore again as his strength gave out and allowed him to fall back on his pillows.

"Now, that's enough of that, boy," a familiar voice growled. Briar hazily recognized Rosethorn's stern expression and began to struggle with renewed energy.

"Rosethorn, I need to—"

"No," she cut him off gruffly. "I'll not have you wandering about while there's still traces of poppy powder in your body." She shoved him down.

It took a couple blinks for Briar to register what she said. "Poppy…powder? You've drugged me?"

"Wipe that offended look off your face," she snapped as she rearranged the bedclothes. "As if you expected me to sit twiddling my thumbs while you staggered about the Citadel like a drunk idiot, rambling about finding spells and search parties." She sighed, her features softening into a look of genuine remorse. "I know you must think I'm being intolerably unfair, but your foolish love for the heroic does not mix well with a concussion, my boy. You still need your rest."

Briar hadn't been fully attending. He stared at her dreamily as he uttered, "Search party?"

"There have been two patrols since the other night, but still no news." The confused look on her student's face prompted her to say, "I know it's difficult, but you need to sleep. Sandry is doing all she can to find her."

Briar continued to stare, his face screwed up with the effort of making sense of what she was telling him. Memory trickled back. "Evvy's gone."

"Like I said, Sandry is—Oh, Mila preserve me!" Rosethorn barely had time to register her mistake before Briar once again lurched out of bed. She had forgotten the temporary memory loss that accompanied a heavy dose of poppy powder. He had only just caught up to the events preceding this afternoon. She silently cursed her carelessness and dug in her habit for another rubber vial.

Luckily Briar had not managed to get very far, his muddled head forcing his path into a crooked line. Rosethorn would be able to subdue him on her own. She grabbed him from behind and ruthlessly thrust the open vial into his right nostril. Startled, he inhaled sharply, sending the drug deep into his nasal passage. He coughed and choked while he felt his body steadily go limp. Rosethorn grimly half-carried his stumbling form back to bed and laid him down gently as sleep began to claim him.

"Calm down, or it'll be a fist I shove into your head next time," she threatened against his murmured protests.

Once again, Briar felt as if he were floating, and the warm sensation grew as Rosethorn pulled the blanket up to his chin. He stared blankly at the ceiling, but all he saw was Evvy's tear-streaked face.

"Evvy…" he persisted weakly. "She'll kick me if I don't…come find her…" he trailed off as his eyes fluttered closed.

Rosethorn's exasperated expression melted into a mask of sadness. She didn't want to think about what measures she would be forced to take should her worst suspicions about Evvy's whereabouts prove true.

She knew a mage's greatest asset, their magic, could often prove to be their worst enemy. She couldn't count the number of promising mages who had fallen under the weight of their own power over the years. The thought of Evvy succumbing to the same fate chilled her. But an even worse thought caused her to shiver.

If they were unable to find the girl, there didn't exist a drug in the world powerful enough to erase the agony in her student's heart.

"I'm so sorry, Briar."

* * *

mmm...opiates. Even in Emelan.


	20. Severed

With older age, comes more mature themes?

* * *

Rosethorn took no chances the following morning. They took watches in turns of two, each armed with a rubber vial of poppy powder. Rosethorn hated to use multiple doses on him, but each day was worse than the last. It was clear Briar was still in the throes of panic, and they could rarely afford to let him leave his bed with the delicate nature of his head injury. It drove Briar mad. They wouldn't hear of his leaving the bedchamber before his head had sufficiently healed or definite news of Evvy arrived.

But two more days had gone by, and still no word. Briar grew more frantic. As they gave him steadily decreasing doses of poppy powder each night, the only consolation they could give him was that they hadn't heard _bad _news. That, at least, was a relief.

When he awoke on the fourth day, the grim, determined faces that surrounded him made him instinctively lurch to the farthest corner of his bed, pressing himself against the wall and as far away from his "friends" as possible. He saw the rubber vial clutched in Daja's hand and flinched.

"No. No more poppy powder," he pleaded. "I've dreamt of enough clouds and rainbows to last ten lifetimes."

"Fair enough." A book snapped closed and Trisana Chandler was wearing one of her famous frosty smiles. "I hear lightning brings on a most _dreamless_ sleep." A spark played across one of her braids. It was clear she had long since lost patience with his hysterics.

Briar gulped. "No, I promise I'll be…reasonable." His shoulders slumped. He was the picture of defeat. He needed to be calm if he was to help Evvy. He had spent too long in this drug-induced stupor. "Just, bring me Niko, would you? I need some things explained to me, I think."

Daja and Tris exchanged glances.

"Of course," Daja said finally. She gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze and left.

Tris continued to stare at him.

"What?" he demanded. The comforting effects of the poppy powder were wearing off and it left him feeling irritable and exhausted all over again.

"It's not looking good," she stated plainly.

He bristled. "Do you think I don't know that?" he snapped. He suddenly hated that unflinching face, those calm grey eyes that refused to show him any pity. It infuriated him that she could be so placid while his own emotions swirled like a hot tempest in his chest. "Do you think I don't know what happens when a powerful mage has so little control? Don't think for one moment I don't realize how much I've screwed up, Tris!" he shouted at her. There was no drug to placate him now. He embraced the shame that suddenly swarmed him. He put his head in his hands. "This is my fault. I shouldn't have been her teacher."

"Yes, that's probably true."

Briar's head jerked, and he shot her the most incredulous glare. "Yeah, Tris? By all means, tell me what you really think. And don't hold back," he invited venomously.

She frowned at his ill humor. _It's not my fault you can't seem to separate the mage's workroom from the mage's bedroom_, she thought viciously. She considered delivering a small static shock to promptly wipe the indignant look off his face but stopped herself. Broken hearts deserved some degree of patience, she supposed. She took a deep breath and looked at the wall, avoiding his hostile gaze in order to speak rationally.

"I only meant," she began calmly, "perhaps you should have reconsidered your position when your relationship had begun to…change. That's all." Tris silently praised herself for the tactful response. It wasn't often she could hold back a biting retort (especially with Briar), but she felt he deserved her utmost civility at this moment.

"Relationship?" he asked. "How do you mean?"

Tris's self-satisfaction evaporated. She turned, wide-eyed, to look at Briar. She was about to laugh at his absurd timing for a joke, but the sound died in her throat. The look on his face was earnest as he awaited her reply, not a trace of irony to be seen. It seemed he still truly did not understand the situation he was in.

Tris opened her mouth, but no words came. If it had been hard to hold back a retort a moment before, it was much harder to devise something clever to say now.

_Curse that Sandry_, she thought. Matchmaking and coy games may be an everyday practice among the noble-born, but this was leagues outside of Tris's experience. Whatever scheme Sandry was crafting by keeping Briar unaware of his influence over Evvy, Tris did not want to be the one to make the next move. Thankfully, the sound of the door opening behind them saved her that catastrophe.

Tris shot out of her chair and hurried to Niko, who stood in the doorway.

"He doesn't know," she whispered to him as she passed. "Briar doesn't see it at all!"

"Not everyone can be as perceptive as you or I, Trisana." He smiled as her eyes flicked back into the room worriedly. "Don't worry. I will attempt a little delicacy." He closed the door with a soft click.

At this, Tris raised an eyebrow. She suddenly sensed that her own feeble skills in the art of giving advice might have served Briar better than those of the sly, older mage. However, it was too late now, so she simply shrugged and stalked down the hall to find Sandry and Daja. She was sure that Niko could do the job adequately, if not precisely how Sandry had envisioned.

Niko crossed Briar's bedchamber in a few short strides and sat in the chair Tris had vacated.

"Now, how are you feeling today, Briar?"

"Physically?" he snorted. His attempt at a smile faltered and broke. He looked down at his hands. He could not contain his frustration. "I shouldn't be sitting here, Niko. I should be out looking for her!" he said miserably. "I know I failed to teach her properly, but I can still help her get her control back!" He shook his head against the grim thoughts that plagued his mind, but he had to say it. "If she's still…alive, I'm her only chance."

"That's not true, Briar."

Briar stared at the man. "What do you mean? I'm her teacher!" Why is it everyone seemed to expect him to neglect his duty to Evvy?

"I've been wondering about you two since we arrived in Summersea," Niko remarked conversationally, ignoring Briar's question. He would explain his hypothesis in due time. Right now, he wanted to get to the bottom of this teenage romance once and for all. "The nature of your relationship."

"Our relationship?" And why did everyone suddenly seem to have some _idea_ about his and Evvy's relationship? Just as the threads of a foreign notion began to creep into Briar's brain, Niko spoke.

"Have you taken Evvy into your bed?"

* * *

"He's going to ruin everything!" Sandry cried.

The three young women were waiting in Sandry's sitting room. Tris had just told her foster-sisters that Niko seemed about to divulge everything to Briar.

"He can't be allowed to carry on in the dark any longer," Tris said flatly as she turned another page of her book. "It was madness to keep him so ill-informed at all."

Sandry looked helplessly to Daja for support, but the tall young woman only shrugged. "You've seen the mess in your courtyard," she stated plainly. "We can't afford any more games, Sandry."

Sandry huffed, but didn't relent. "Yes, I see your point, but you can't deny that this is a matter of love Niko is dealing with! Not one of his well-researched lectures." She gave them all a shrewd look. "And you haven't forgotten Niko's last venture into heart-to-heart chats."

The two other girls froze, visibly cringing. Even Tris had to set her book down and clutch a hand over her eyes. "I had just _stopped_ having nightmares about that, Sandry."

One afternoon, just weeks before the four teens had departed on their travels, Niko had visited the three girls at Discipline cottage. Briar and Rosethorn were at a nearby village distributing medicinal remedies while Lark made a social call. Niko had decided to take it upon himself to educate the girls about the more…mature ways of the world.

His intentions had been noble enough, a father giving his daughters a needed life-lesson. But Niko's incurably blunt humor coupled with his clinical descriptions had left them pale and voiceless through the ordeal. Not to mention that Lark and Rosethorn had already kept them well informed on such matters, and in less _colorful_ terms. The experience had been haunting.

Tris was the first to break the silence. "I may have made a huge miscalculation."

* * *

At first Briar thought he had grievously misheard the question. There was no mistaking, however, the flash of heat enveloping his neck and face. Briar stared open-mouthed at Niko, but the older man simply waited for his answer, a patient grin on his face. One would think he had only inquired after his health or the weather.

"She's too young for all that!" he finally sputtered. "And she's my student!" he added hastily.

"I see. Do you have any sort of physical relationship with her at all?"

Briar blinked slowly. Was Niko genuinely asking him how far he had gone with Evvy? Just how much poppy powder was still in his system?

"No!" he cried indignantly. "She's my student, I'm her teacher. I would never!"

"So it is purely suppressed emotion," Niko remarked quietly to himself. "Do you deny she is dear to you?" he asked innocently.

"What is this, Niko?" he demanded. "She's nothing if not my little sis—" But even before he completed the thought he knew they were not quite right. He tried again. "My best…?" he trailed off.

This was not the first time someone had insinuated that the relationship with one of his close female friends was more than just brotherly. It had been easy enough to laugh off the jealous remarks of other boys, that he was living every male's dream, surrounded by women. It had also been easy to flick a knife under the nose of anyone who dared voice such opinions with more than a dash of lewd innuendo. Briar tried to produce another one of his offhand explanations, but his mind flailed under Niko's unconcerned gaze. He changed tactics.

"Listen, I won't sit here while you so casually insult her and humiliate me in the same breath," he warned. "What is this about, Niko?"

Niko sighed. He had hoped the anger that arose from his crudeness would somehow accelerate Briar's understanding for him. He decided to speak plainly. "I have reason to believe that Evvy's magic is somehow tied up with you, in a way that goes further than the relationship between teacher and student." He watched for Briar's reaction before he continued.

"What, like when the girls and I were kids?"

"Similar, yes. But at a more basic, unconscious level," he answered. "Evvy may have anchored almost all of her magic in her bond with you, rather than within herself. Judging by the severity of the magical backlash that night, she may not have known she had done it."

"And the logical conclusion you've come to is that I've been a scoundrel," he said dryly.

Niko frowned. "If you indeed aren't lovers, it can only be the cause of her deep, maybe even involuntarily felt, emotions. It's clear she trusted you, Briar. Body and soul. Naturally, her magic would follow." Niko saw the effect of his words begin to take shape. "And to miss the growing magical bond would be an easy mistake to make as her teacher, especially if you also held a particular attachment for her. It would have been a subtle, gradual process, aligned with her feelings for you." He watched Briar's face, waiting for another outburst, but his next words were quiet.

"You all really think that Evvy is in love with me?" He wanted to laugh at the preposterous notion, but he couldn't. Worse, as soon as the words left his mouth, a warm, excited sensation had bubbled in his stomach. He tried to force down the sudden, elated feeling but found it very difficult.

"This doesn't make any sense," he protested to himself as much to Niko. "Evvy wouldn't trust me to take care of her cats, let alone entrust her magic to me. You're wrong." But even as he said it, he knew Niko was right. Evvy _had_ trusted him, more than anyone she had ever known. As maddeningly stubborn and independent as she was, she had always put her life in his hands without question after they left Chammur. It wasn't so hard to believe she would do the same with her magic.

"But if I'm right, that means there is still a way to find her, using what is left of that bond," Niko told him. "Much of the connection was frayed when she lost faith with you at the ball, but I believe there might still be a way to use it."

_Lost faith. _The words stung anew. _That's right. It's still my fault. The fact that she loved me only makes it ten times worse._ He sunk back into his feelings of helplessness.

"If I can detect and concentrate on that connection, we have a chance of tracing it to Evvy. But I need you sane, Briar. I need you to trust me."

"You can find her?" This got Briar's attention. "I'll do whatever you say."

* * *

In the darkness, Evvy breathed deeply. She had been meditating for hours, exploring the wellspring of magic deep within her.

When she had regained enough power and restraint to do so, she had found a dark niche in the wall of an alley and asked the rock to hide her from prying eyes, the same spell she had unknowingly worked when she had lived in Chammur.

In a painstaking process, she sorted through every thread of her magic, testing its limitations and the degree of her control over it. She didn't like what she found.

It was a shambles. She couldn't touch one shred of her power without also unknowingly triggering some memory, thought, or emotion connected with Briar. Because the day she met him had also marked the beginning of her relationship with her magic, it seemed she had also unwittingly linked every thread she developed afterward to him.

Tris had been right to yell at her. Evvy's magic was terribly muddled. It was little wonder a single heated insult had turned things violent that night at the ball. In the end, she was surprised it had taken so long to uncover her weakness; the trigger now seemed so slight.

_A child's mistake_, she thought bitterly. _A child who threw a tantrum when her god turned out to be human._

Again, self-loathing gripped her and she had to work to keep the inviting image of toppling buildings from her mind. She had made a serious mistake, but she had also made a promise.

She worked obsessively, taking very few breaks to sleep and eat scraps she had begged off passerby. It was indeed as if her wish to go back to her life in Chammur had been granted, she mused with grim humor.

Separating thoughts of Briar from her magic was no easy task. It pained her in a deep part of her chest to feel his influence wrenched away to make room for the new bonds, bonds that were hers alone for her to control. But each time she completed the repair of a rope of her magic, she couldn't help but feel a little more at ease with her new completeness. Her mastery over her power was rebuilding slower than she had anticipated, but the process left her stronger and more honed than she had ever felt before.

As she neared the completion of her last magical reweaving, a memory flashed.

Briar's jade-colored eyes unfocused and blinking in the dust-filled air of the ruined courtyard. Blood and grime streaked his otherwise fine features. "I've always cared about you. I mean, I love you too much not to."

And then it was gone, the image consumed as quick as a dried leaf in fire.

Evvy pressed her palms to stinging eyelids. There it was again. The knowledge she had tried to suppress since the night she fled the Citadel.

He had loved her.

And in the moment his eyes had fluttered shut and he refused to answer her shouts, she knew she had loved him too.

She sobbed; she couldn't hold back the wave of despair any longer. She had destroyed everything, and there was no hope of picking up the pieces. He was gone, and it was her fault.

The rock of her niche seemed to relax around her. Evvy felt it become somewhat warmer and cozier, as if the rock were enveloping her in a sympathetic embrace.

Evvy sniffed and wiped her eyes. The process was almost complete. She had to hold on just little longer. She inhaled and exhaled slowly. After a few deep breaths she could focus inward to her magic and find what she was looking for.

There. A sparkling green thread knotted tight into her fire of magic, pulled taut as it led outside of herself to a faraway, unknown destination.

Evvy reached out and snapped it before she could reconsider. The force of its amputation made her gasp and throw herself back into consciousness. The new emptiness was overwhelming, but she was finally free. She was the only one with access to her magic now, and she would never lose that control again.

Her heart ached with the absence of Briar's force in her magic, but she knew she could settle for treasuring her many memories of him.

She had to move on now.

* * *

Niko hadn't spoken for several minutes, and Briar was starting to feel anxious.

"What is it? What do you see?"

Niko hesitated, then removed the glass device from his eye. "I did see it Briar, for a moment I saw the string between you two. But…" he struggled with the phrasing. Briar felt dizzy with the apprehension that surged through his veins. The look on Niko's face was grave. "The bond faded. And then disappeared completely."

"So…what? Her magic is spent? She's weak?" Panic was starting to seize him again, but he forced it down. He had to stay calm.

"She's either severed the connection willfully, or—"

"Why would she do that?" he interrupted wildly. He did not want to hear the alternative, but Niko's quiet words cut through to him regardless.

"Or she's gone, Briar."

* * *

Is Niko out of character? Ehhhhhh I don't know.


	21. Unexpected Ally

This was supposed to be the last chapter, but it got too long. Split it up!

* * *

Briar couldn't believe it. He _wouldn't _believe it. Even if he wanted to force himself to listen to the facts and accept her terrible fate, his heart simply could not accept that Evvy was truly gone.

He felt the familiar manic energy begin to take hold of him again, but he forced it down. He would have to stay rational this time if he were to go through with the plan that was slowly forming in his mind.

"We'll keep looking, Briar," Sandry had assured him, tears sparkling in her red-rimmed eyes. "We won't give up." He only nodded, feigning shock as his friends filed in one-by-one to offer condolences. Rosethorn murmured a few soft words then reached for the now customary vial of poppy powder. The look on Briar's face, however, made her reluctantly stuff it back in her sleeve.

"Of course. Forgive me." She reached to give Briar's shoulder a gentle squeeze, then hesitated. Suddenly she was kneeling beside him, pulling him into a rough embrace. Her shoulders quivered. "I'm so sorry, Briar. She was my responsibility too." Her voice cracked. "I've failed you as well. Please forgive me."

Briar could only chance a sad smile. He didn't trust himself to speak, for it pained him to deceive his former teacher so. He hugged her back gratefully, then wiggled himself back deep beneath the sheets and waited for her to leave.

As the light under his door dimmed and quiet steadily settled over the Citadel, Briar eased himself out of bed. It was slow and difficult to dress with only one stiff arm, but at least his head had finally stopped swimming. He packed a modest mage kit into a satchel and made for the door.

He opened it a crack and nearly yelped when he saw Tris' long-nosed face leering back at him from the hallway. She clamped a hand over his mouth and brought her stormy grey eyes level with his.

"No noise. No fuss. We'll talk in the courtyard," she said in a low voice, barely above a whisper. Briar opened his lips to protest when he saw lightning flash briefly in the darkness from a braid just behind her ear. "Courtyard," she hissed. She didn't need to tell him again.

When they walked out of the Citadel into the night air, Briar rounded on her. "You can't—"

"I _can_," she countered. "And you're in no position to refuse me." She smiled while lightning continued to play threateningly in light sparkles through her hair. The effect was quite frightening.

"I can't believe you've resorted to bullying," he complained. How was he going to get away from her with only one good arm? And worse, how would he do it without alerting the whole Citadel?

"I'm not bullying. I'm forcibly offering my help." At Briar's skeptical look, she continued, "If you think she's still out there, Briar, you have a right to look for answers. But even you must admit, you're not in the best shape to be wandering the streets alone," she added wryly.

Briar felt his pride stir defensively. He may be injured, but he was _not_ some weak lamb. "I'm not looking for brawls, Tris. Just one lost girl." Her stubborn expression did not change. "And unless you have, I don't know, scouts made of cyclones, or a lightning-powered seeking machine, I don't see how your help is going to make much difference," he added hotly.

Tris just smiled. "I have the wind."

* * *

Evvy realized it had been more than a day since she had left her makeshift hollow. The darkness of late evening was a welcome camouflage, but Evvy still squirmed nervously. There seemed to be an army of people this late in the marketplace; the noise gave her a headache. She accepted her food from the vendor, left a copper crescent, and scurried away.

It had taken some work to get this meal. When no respectable vendor would speak to her due to her beggarly appearance, she was forced to commit her first act of thievery in years. A careless washerwoman had been slow to collect a basket left out in a back alley, and Evvy took this opportunity to nab a simple cotton dress and a headscarf. For coin, she magicked a pebble into the appearance of a precious stone and pawned it. Evvy felt uneasy for her growing list of crimes, but quickly convinced herself that there was no other way. She couldn't very well sneak back to the citadel for her belongings; squads of Harriers could be scouring the lower city for her as it was.

_No_. She sighed, thinking sadly of the treasures she would have to leave behind, including her precious stone alphabet. _I can't go back_.

Leaning against a wall to enjoy her first real meal in days, Evvy thought hard about her next steps. She had to leave Summersea and eventually Emelan altogether. That much was obvious. _But to where?_ She jangled the bits of copper and silver in her pocket. She had enough for a ship's passage, not much more. She evaluated the options left to her. She had heard of a sizable jewel trade in the markets of Anderran. A stone mage would find little trouble finding an obscure living there, or so she hoped. She took a last mouthful of hot bread, and made for Summersea's docks.

* * *

"Aye," the sailor said as he inspected her coin. "That'll do. We sail in two hours. A minute late, and we'll leave you behind, sure as rain."

Evvy nodded, smiling slightly. The old man's price had been surprisingly cheap; she suspected she could afford to buy another set of clothes and more food before her journey. She trotted in the direction of the night market.

Halfway down what she thought was a deserted alley, someone lightly touched her arm.

"Slow, Little Love. Where is it you rush with such speed?" Evvy readied a sharp retort, but the breath caught in her throat. A grand young man stood before her.

He was attractive; longish, dirty-blonde hair and warm brown eyes that seemed to taunt and invite at the same time. But Evvy also noticed he was dressed much too handsomely for someone who frequented alleyways at night; an ivory silk shirt, wine-colored brocade overcoat, black wool hose, and shiny leather boots. She soon understood why: a heavy mage's medallion rested against his chest from an expensive silver chain, more like a badge of office than a simple credential. Rosethorn and Briar had always worn theirs inconspicuously beneath their shirts.

_A pet mage?_ she wondered disapprovingly. She saw the medallion was not his only ornament. Twin garnets dangled from his ears, and despite her distrust Evvy could not help but admire the way the red glimmer mirrored the gleam of his eyes in the torchlight.

"Night market, if it pleases milord," she said, keeping her eyes downcast. She judged it better to play ignorant guttersnipe than pique the interest of a peacock, even one who smiled as charmingly as this one. His notice already unsettled her; had news of a runaway Yanjingyi girl already traveled through the city?

"Jasper lal Tasche, a mage of the Emerald Triangle. Please allow me to escort you." He smiled down at her warmly. Evvy stayed silent, unsure of how best to refuse the offer. The suspicion must have shown on her face because he added, "A pretty young lady alone is like to attract unwanted harassment in these, ah…rougher parts of the city." She still hesitated; the gentle-bred and well educated were no pals to common folk. The garnets in his ears tinkled a friendly tune with the turn of his head, and Evvy reluctantly felt herself relax.

Evvy knew she ought to refuse, but instead uttered a quiet "Thank you, milord." Her plan to avoid people was temporarily cast aside, but she convinced herself that she could possibly wheedle some valuable news of the Citadel from her companion. No doubt he was the type to flit about privileged gossip circles. She didn't have to wait long for him to speak.

"Your coloring is most exotic for Emelan," he began conversationally. "From where do you hail, Miss…?"

"Mei," she replied too quickly. She blushed, trying to recall the story she had worked out just before leaving her hollow. She could feel the man's amused brown eyes on her. "I've just arrived from Karang. To visit the Winding Circle temple." She knew a well-traveled man would find this dubious at best, but the mage was either too unfamiliar or disinterested in the far-east country to remark further on it. Citadel guards would be looking for a Yanjingyi girl, if they were looking for her at all. It was best to lie about her heritage for now.

He asked her how she liked Winding Circle and Summersea. As their conversation wound on, she found she needed to remind herself several times to stay guarded; lal Tasche's presence beside her was making her altogether too light-headed for comfort.

She suddenly noticed that they were well past Spicer Street, the most direct route to the market.

"Sir, the market—"

"A more scenic route, I assure you. No doubt you would love to see the sights of our famous Copper Triangle." He held out his elbow for her to grasp, and Evvy conveniently forgot her visit to the Copper Triangle with Briar and Sandry not days before. She found she couldn't refuse that wicked grin as she compulsively placed a dirty hand atop his richly dressed sleeve.

* * *

Briar was growing restless. Tris had told him that her scrying required complete focus and patience, but it had been almost _two hours_. He wanted nothing more than to sneak off and scour the lower city on his own. Every time he contemplated this urge, however, he reminded himself that would leave him no closer to finding Evvy than he was sitting there on the lip of the square's fountain. Summersea was enormous. Briar sighed and slid a knife from his sleeve to pick his nails.

He had just transferred the knife awkwardly to his wounded arm when he heard Tris inhale sharply. Briar nearly dropped the knife in his rush to her side.

"What is it?" Briar asked breathlessly. "Do you see her?"

"No. But I see a fool." Tris' eyes narrowed with distaste. "It seems the Emerald Triangle's favorite magician is prowling the Night Market."

"Who?" Briar was mystified.

"Jasper lal Tasche. Niko and I had the pleasure of meeting the popular "Stone-Blooded" idiot at a conference en route to Tharios." Tris' eyes remained unblinking, focusing sharply on the image she had plucked from the wind. "He's looking for her as well. I'm sure of it."

"Why?" he demanded. "What would he want with Evvy?"

"Lal Tasche is ambitious and vain, but generally harmless. I expect he wants to steal her as student, or at least sell information to the Citadel."

Briar snorted. "She'd eat him alive."

"That's what I'm afraid of," she continued. "He's attractive, popular, and well-regarded, but no ambient mage. Just a clever academic with a flair for parlor tricks. I find it amazing he's gotten so far with only his charm to recommend him." Tris broke her connection with the wind and stiffly got to her feet. "If Evvy is out there, we should stop him before he gets too close; she's likely to tear him to pieces rather than be caught." She made to walk away, but Briar stopped her with an arm.

"We're not seriously going to waste time making small talk with some fraud?" he asked her sharply. "What about Evvy?"

Tris swatted his hand away and took a deep breath, silently asking Mila of the Grain to grant her patience. "At best, he'll have clues for us. Worst, he finds her before we do and she kills him. I'm not joking, Briar," she snapped at his scoffing look. "She has _no control_. A ruined courtyard is one thing, but a wanton murder? She would be hanged."

"The duke would never—"

"He _would_," she hissed. "Duke Vedris is more bound by the law than anyone." She sighed, feeling weary with what she was about to ask of him. Tris placed her hands on his shoulders and met his eyes squarely. "You must promise that you will do what is necessary should things go wrong," she said gravely.

He stared at her, aghast. "You can't mean that."

Tris gripped him even harder. "I know that you feel honor-bound to this girl, Briar. But we also have a duty to this city. To these people. We are mages, and we protect lives. _At all cost_." She looked at him hard, then added, "And if you can't do that, I will."

"It won't come to that." He turned out of her grip and walked in the direction Tris' wind image had come. "We'll find her first, and it won't come to that."

* * *

Thank god for the Tamora Pierce wiki.


	22. Reunion and Goodbye

10 pages and 5000 words for this one. It's been great. Enjoy.

* * *

"The Copper Triangle is where we house our artisans and craftsmen," Jasper narrated as he and Evvy strolled by stalls and shops of expertly crafted goods of all kinds. While he pointed out the treasures of Summersea—metalwork, rich fabrics, even some precious gem-cutters—Evvy's mind wandered. How ridiculous they must look, she mused. A dandy and a street urchin. A nagging sensation tugged at her mind, but Evvy ignored it, too absorbed in her giddy thoughts. _And he's handsome too_, Evvy thought dreamily. She allowed her eyes to trace Jasper's features: his brown eyes, to his high cheekbones, and finally on the garnet earring that seemed to wink back at her in the dimness.

_An elegant man, paying attention to __**me**_, she thought. She could almost giggle with delight. _Not such a skinny street rat now, am I Pahan?_

Evvy jerked, and her steps slowed. Jasper looked down at her, big brown eyes full of concern.

"Something amiss?"

Evvy snatched her hand away from him as if she'd been burned. Backing away, she searched his face again solemnly, casting aside the admiration she had held for him not moments before. His blonde hair seemed dull now; those lovely brown eyes were narrow and haughty, a perfect match for his pinched face. The garnets in his ears sparkled as enchantingly as ever.

"You're a stone mage!" she exclaimed.

He swept a mocking bow. "Thank the garnets." He smiled at her while the earrings jingled, and Evvy suddenly felt very foolish and drawn to the man all over again. "They amplify self-esteem, popularity, and…" he winked at her, "sexual attraction." Evvy blushed more furiously than ever, as much from anger as humiliation.

Suddenly the world around her came sharply back into focus; she realized where she was. The Summersea Harrier headquarters was only a block away. He had meant to make a bounty on her, like a common criminal!

Evvy's blood boiled. She hadn't wanted a fight, but this pretty fool was practically begging for a jagged roof tile to the face. She extended a hand, meaning to rip the deceptive powers from the garnets, and hopefully the earrings from his ears as well. But she remembered the ship to Anderran, the Citadel's guards, as well as the familiar, disapproving glare Briar had often given her at the end of a stubborn lecture.

No, now was not the time to be hotheaded, she decided. She turned to run, but found her path blocked by lackeys.

"Now, now, Miss Dingzai." Jasper smiled insolently at her infuriated expression. "Come quietly, little girl, if you please. You are no match for a Lightsbridge-trained stone mage. Of course you've heard of Lightsbridge, being from Karaan," he taunted.

Evvy gritted her teeth. She knew he was only trying to get a rise from her, to draw her closer and toss her to the Harriers. She could topple the brittle clay overhang that the lackeys had stupidly chosen to stand under, then evade them in the following dust cloud before Jasper could blink an eye. A simple escape plan, but the vicious urge to put the peacock in his place rooted her where she stood.

"You have a gift, I'll give you that," he said, taking a step closer. "Even I, the "Stone-Blooded", could not detect where you hid among your rocks. But you are a child nonetheless. Only an errant child would destroy a duke's castle and attack his guests. You are a little better than a wild animal." He shook his head with a pitying grin.

"I have an idea," he continued, his friendly tones sounding more the philanthropist than a blackmailer. "How would you like it if _I _took on your education? A better alternative than imprisonment, I assure you." He smiled and let his garnets sparkle, trying to entice her further. "Your power was wasted with that plant mage fool."

Now that _did_ make Evvy mad. But it wasn't the fiery, indignant anger that flushed her moments before. This was cold. Precise. The stillness before a viper struck.

One icy glare, and Jasper's garnets flew from their settings to her outstretched hand.

Her other hand flew behind her, and Evvy sent a fist of power to the clay stone overhang and sent it crashing on the two lackeys before they could react. They screamed, but Evvy eased her power expertly at the last moment and allowed the fallen stone to form two tight coffins around them; only their noses showed. Now it was Evvy's turn to smirk. She savored Jasper's shocked face.

"Then you must be an even greater fool," she said sweetly. "Thinking I would _ever _accept a deal from scum like you."

* * *

A gust of wind swirled about them. Briar paused, watching the faraway look on Tris' face as she picked out images here and there. She had done this several times during their long walk to the Night Market, but this time Tris froze abruptly. She turned and looked at Briar, dread evident on her face.

"Where?" he asked quietly.

"The Copper Triangle. But we're so far away; she might have already—"

"Just run!" he ordered, refusing to hear that they were too late. He took off for Spicer Street. Tris didn't protest. She followed quietly behind, her mouth a grim line.

* * *

Evvy wanted to laugh. How many times had she dreamed of being in this position? Looming over a frightened, high-class fellow, drunk on the pleasure of watching him squirm with the wrongness of it all.

She smiled smugly at the kneeling lal Tasche, a wicked gleam in her eye. She had asked the flagstones of the alley to bind her new friend, and they had gladly obliged, wrapping stone fingers tightly about his wrists. She had discovered Jasper was no stone mage after all; his power extended only to the knowledge and enhancement of a stone's natural properties. He couldn't manipulate or commune with them as she did, and it had taken but a moment's effort to wrest any bewitched gems from his grasp.

His eyes were wide with glorious fear as she stepped closer to him. He gasped, "They said you had no control over your power." He was sweating. "You're just a girl!" he wailed.

Evvy knelt before him and grabbed his chin, yanking his face to meet her hard gaze. "Yes. Just a worthless girl who disappeared before you could lay eyes on her. That's what you will tell anyone who asks." Her dark eyes never left his. "You will forget I was ever here."

"What goes on there?" A gruff voice shouted at the other end of the alley.

_Harriers_, she thought, panicked. Her concentration weakened for just half a moment, but it was enough. Jasper wrenched against a bond, crumbling it to gravel. He flung a handful of it at Evvy, who reacted too late and took the assault on the right half of her face. She staggered backward, caught her foot, and fell hard to the ground.

Evvy shook her head and rubbed her eyes violently, trying to dispel the painful debris from her vision. She heard the screech of metal on metal and froze as cold steel pressed against her neck.

"Well if I can't have a famous student, I've also heard you're worth at least a dozen gold majas, wench," Jasper growled, inches from her face. "I'm not likely to forget that." He laughed at her stunned silence. "In the slave pens or from the duke, I _will_ get my gold. You have only decide which fate you prefer," he purred.

Evvy shivered; she felt an unusually strong wave of fear and weakness churn in her belly. She sent a spider's thread of magic to the dagger at her throat and found it was encrusted with green and red spotted bloodstones. Generally, bloodstones enhanced courage and chances of victory, but Evvy found that Jasper had also reverse-conjured them to induce fear and obedience in its victims.

She fought hard against their influence, while Jasper wrenched the garnets from Evvy's hands and fastened them back onto his earrings. Evvy could just make out his triumphant smile through her painful, blinking eyes.

That expression only lasted half a second, however, as the voice of the harrier who had distracted her broke into their scene.

"What are doing with the girl?" the woman demanded. "Release her at once."

Evvy felt a flutter of hope, but Jasper was quicker to react than she had been. He spun around and brought the jewel-encrusted dagger hilt close to his face. His brown eyes glimmered with flecks of red and green, and Evvy could feel the bloodstones' power radiate from them.

"I am Jasper lal Tasche, a humble servant of the Citadel," he said smoothly. "The girl is a fugitive from the duke's law, and I'm delivering her into custody soon. Go back to your post, lady-harrier," he ordered.

Uncertainty flickered across the woman's face, but she bowed quickly. "Yes, my Lord lal Tasche." She turned on her heel and trotted down the alley. Evvy wanted to scream, but Jasper was already pressing a shiny boot to her chest.

"Best we keep quiet for now, love," he whispered.

"C-coward. Dirty, stupid, fake mage," she managed to sputter.

He kneeled close to her, his brown eyes cruel and devoid of their attractive warmth. "You've suddenly put me in a generous mood." The twisted smile he gave chilled her to the bone. He was so close to her she could smell his foul perfumes. "Since it's apparent your teacher was so woefully neglectful, allow me to give you some etiquette lessons." He drew the dagger down the length of her arm, opening an angry line of blood.

Evvy's mind was in a panic. She eagerly wanted to lash out at Jasper with all her unbridled power, but she couldn't trust her grip on it through the blinding pain. "All my life I've had to endure brats like you," he snarled. "The natural talent. The _gifted_," he spat. Evvy screamed as he opened another gash in her arm. "But who is more powerful now, I wonder?" She looked on in horror as more blood pooled beneath her arm.

_I might die here._ For it was clear Jasper was quickly losing grip of reason. All talk of slave pens and gold forgotten, he scrutinized her pain-contorted face with a mix of bloodlust and fascination.

_What do I do?_ Evvy thought frantically. The fear and hopelessness nursed by the bloodstones seemed to course through her veins, as if the dagger's bite was poisoning her as well. _What do I do?_

"There's no need to cry, Little Love. Do I frighten you that much?" Evvy hadn't noticed the tears streaming down her face; she was shivering all over from the pain and terror. "You should have accepted my offer. I could have raised us high in the country's esteem," he said as he stroked a tear away from her cheek. His touch was horrifically gentle, and Evvy flinched as hard as if he had touched her face with the blade.

"True, I don't have much to offer in the field of ambient stone magic, but at least I could have kept you safe while you served me." He laughed bitterly. "Poor girl. How could that witless plant mage have thrown you away so easily, moping for days in the Citadel while you are poached like an animal?"

Evvy's eyes flew open. _Pahan Briar is alive?_ Her heart beat wildly, and suddenly she could barely feel the throbbing wounds in her arm; her joy was so strong. For one delirious moment, Evvy imagined him bounding around the corner, knives in hand to cut Jasper to pieces.

_Save me, Briar_, she prayed, shutting her eyes tightly. _If you really are still alive, come find me, like you did at Lady Zenadia's_.

But for agonizing moments she could only feel the sting in her flesh and Jasper's weight on her ribcage.

_He's not coming_, she thought hopelessly. And why would he? She had very nearly killed him. She could understand why Sandry's tender care might be preferable to a slab of marble to the head. No, she would have to be content with the fact that he lived. She could die peacefully knowing that, at least.

Almost immediately, Briar's furious face appeared behind her eyelids, the expression he normally reserved for days she had been particularly mule-headed during lessons. He had also worn it the day that day in the woods, with the crushed lily.

_Are you insane?_ his burning eyes seemed to say. Evvy was almost light-headed enough to argue with the mental image. But even then she could recognize the truth in those pained eyes.

Briar hadn't saved her from Lady Zenadia's. Not without her own efforts, anyway. Since when had she needed him to fight her battles? Isn't that what she had told him that night in the courtyard? She didn't need saving, not then and not now. Evvy had spent painstaking hours weaving her magic together and finally mastering it, and now her control was absolute. She would never again allow her own self-doubt to rule her power.

And now Briar was alive, possibly waiting for her to return. She couldn't die in a gutter at the hands of a third-rate mage.

_I can't die_, she realized with a start. She had mastered her magic. Briar was alive. And she needed to find him. She may have cut his influence over her well of power, but that was a link born out of her own doubt and fear. She could never sever the true bond between them: his voice reaching through her despair, his face in her mind's eye. Evvy's magic was hers alone now, but her soul yearned for her friend all the same.

It was as if she had been struck by lightning. Sudden purpose spread from her stomach to her fingertips, where only terror had flourished before. Evvy focused, sending the pain to the back of her mind with one deep breath. She sent a silent command, and a sizable hunk of flagstone flew to her hand.

Jasper hadn't noticed his captive's abrupt silence, and as Evvy struck his skull, she knew she would never forget his stunned and stupid face. She scrambled to her knees as he fell on his side.

She tried to run, but her weak legs kept slipping beneath her. She had nearly crawled beyond his reach when she felt the pinch of Jasper's fingernails in her ankle.

"You bitch!" he roared. Evvy saw that his eyes had taken on a manic gleam. Blood ran down his temple.

_It's either me or him_, Evvy thought grimly. She saw his shirt buttons were shiny, black hematite. She brushed a hand against them, and they glowed with a sudden, searing heat. Jasper shrieked and clawed frantically at his shirtfront.

Evvy latched onto the arm that held the bloodstone dagger. Jasper shook and flailed, earning Evvy more cuts and bruises as she pried his fingers from the hilt. Finally it was free, and she whirled around to thrust the dagger inches from Jasper's nose. The effect was instantaneous. He cowered against the alley wall, and Evvy could swear she smelled his fear.

"You've made a huge mistake," she said in a low, dangerous voice. She could tell he was barely holding back a whimper as she continued, "And I'm going to make sure you _never_ make it again." She raised the dagger level with his face.

* * *

He was too late. He saw the hard, unforgiving look on Evvy's face and the knife in her hand, and he knew. He knew even before he saw the blood.

Jasper lal Tasche clutched a dripping wound on his neck and fell to his knees.

"Evvy, NO!" Briar screamed. But he was far too late.

* * *

Evvy had heard someone yell, but she refused to turn her head. "Stay back!" she ordered. She would explain everything to the harriers eventually, but not now. She needed to be sure her spell had worked.

Jasper's eyes were wide with terror as his hands scrabbled over his neck, searching for the lethal cut. He found none.

"What have you done to me?" he croaked.

Evvy held out the hilt of his blade for him to see. The bloodstones were missing.

"I put them in you," Evvy said simply.

"They're…what?!" he sputtered. His hands fluttered even more wildly over his neck, but all he felt were a smattering of tiny pinpricks.

"An ultrafine powder of fear and obedience is now coursing through your veins. 'Stone-Blooded' indeed." She smiled at his open-mouthed bewilderment. "But don't worry. It wears off eventually. A year or two, I think."

Then the mirth disappeared, and her face became a stern mask as she knelt before him. "You are not to seek me ever again. You are not to speak of me to anyone. _Ever_. Forget your stupid ambitions. Just live and learn to be happy with it. Do you understand?" she demanded. "I'm not in a vengeful mood, but don't think I can't change my mind!" He could only stare at her and nod blankly; the bloodstones would not allow him to protest.

She rose to leave him, but he grabbed her arm frantically. "But…my magic! I'm not powerful; I'm nothing if I can't be a great mage. What can I _do_? Please tell me!" he pleaded. His lost, hopeless eyes tugged at Evvy's heartstrings despite her better judgment. She sighed and settled back down in front of him. She held up three fingers.

"Alright, listen carefully," she began. "Here it is, the key to happiness."

* * *

Briar watched in astonishment as the man tottered away down the alley, dazed and bloody, but otherwise unharmed. Two other men he had not noticed before scampered close behind.

_She didn't kill him_, he reflected in wonder. She had done something to subdue him, to be sure. Something magical. But how had she regained the control to work such a spell?

"Evvy," he said, softer than he had anticipated. He had nearly screamed his lungs out calling out to her before, and now his throat had gone bone dry. He swallowed and tried her name again, louder this time.

She turned, and Briar found that his throat had seized up all over again. He stared at her, and she stared back for what seemed like ages.

_She's changed_, he thought numbly. She wore the same sort of second-hand garb he remembered from their first meeting in Chammur, but her face, her demeanor, her entire presence couldn't be more different from that skittish, stubborn child. She watched him with penetrating eyes, her gaze tracing his body from head to foot. He felt as if she could see right through him, and Briar gulped, his mind suddenly blank. There was something hungry about those eyes.

She took one tentative step toward him, then two. As she neared, the sight of blood dripping from the monstrous cuts on her arms kicked Briar from his stupor.

"What happened?!" he exclaimed. "We need to have you treated…Don't tell me that rat bastard lal Tasche did that to you! Now I almost wish you _had _killed him—" He stopped.

Evvy stood before him, that same odd, searching look in her eyes. She hadn't said a word, but Briar's stomach fluttered uncomfortably under that gaze. He feebly attempted to resume his inquiry. "B-by the way, what did you do to him? Lal Tasche, I mean. That was him, wasn't it? It looked magical, I mean it had to be, but…" He was rambling, he knew. If only she would stop _looking_ at him like that.

Briar didn't have to suffer long. Evvy covered the distance between them in two strides and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. She hugged him so hard it hurt. Her shoulders quivered, from laughter or sobbing Briar couldn't tell. It turned out to be a little of both as she spoke.

"I've been so, so stupid! And I'm sorry about everything!" she cried, her words muffled by his cotton shirt. "I can't believe you're alive. I thought I killed you! I was _sure_ I did."

At this, Briar couldn't help but choke on an astonished laugh. "Killed me? Oh, Evvy. My fearsome girl, don't cry." He held her tightly and awkwardly stroked her hair with his good hand. "No. I should be the one apologizing. It was my fault, I…" He stiffened.

He would have to explain Niko's theory to her, the link between himself and her magic. He knew it was necessary, but he couldn't bear the thought of her embarrassment and pain when he told her what he knew. Worse still was the thought of having to tell her he couldn't reciprocate her romantic feelings. He was still her teacher, when all was said and done. He could only hope that if she tried to kill him again, the rock aimed for his head would be swift and painless.

He settled a grim look on his face and tried to pull away from her. "Listen, Evvy—" he started.

But he was unable to get another word out, for Evvy had pressed her mouth fiercely to his.

She was kissing him, and shock of this comprehension sent him into a seizing panic. He was hardly a stranger to kisses, but for the life of him he couldn't gather up enough wits now to decide between pushing her away or pulling her closer. The indecision gripped him so violently that he ended up doing neither.

Evvy didn't seem to mind Briar's petrified limbs. She simply leaned harder into him and tangled her fingers in his hair, deepening the kiss.

_Where did she learn __**that**__?_ he wondered. For whatever reason, he thought of Pasco, and he made a mental note to murder the boy. Just in case.

Every thought that crossed his mind in those few torturously blissful moments told him to cease this shameful behavior. This was _Evvy_. Stubborn, contrary, impish Evvy. He was her teacher. He had ethical concerns to consider. This was Evvy. This was Evvy. This was _Evvy_…

No matter how much his mind repeated it, every fiber in his body traitorously welcomed the soft feeling of her lips and wondrously gentle fingertips. He grudgingly felt himself surrender, and—Mila help him—he kissed her back.

She broke the kiss moments later, and Briar wanted to kick himself for feeling sorely disappointed. Evvy looked at him somberly, a slight flush on her cheeks the only evidence of their unexpected passion. _Bold as brass_, he thought scornfully. _At least have the decency to look a __**little**__ embarrassed, Evvy_. Briar himself was horrified to find that his breath was coming in ragged gasps.

"I can't be your student anymore," she announced suddenly.

Briar felt as if she had punched him in the stomach. "W-what?" he sputtered. His mind flew with dizzying speed back to the night in the courtyard, his insult, her anger, her rampant magic…His next words came in a flurry. "I know I messed up, Evvy. But I'm sorry, and I can fix it. Please…You can't just—"

"Briar, stop babbling and listen to the girl," a no-nonsense voice interjected behind them. Briar froze. He had forgotten Tris was close behind. Desperation had caused him to outrun his foster sister halfway to the Copper Triangle, and he had completely forgotten her in his mad dash to get to Evvy.

Just how much had she seen? A new blush overtook him then, and he silently scolded himself for acting the a silly, inexperienced maiden. He forced himself to look serious.

"And you approve of this, do you?" he demanded. He refused to seem flustered under that stormy gaze of hers.

Tris smiled and addressed Evvy. "You've mastered your power, haven't you?"

Evvy nodded. Briar opened his mouth unbelievingly, intending to investigate the matter further. But he couldn't. He didn't need to, for he suddenly knew it to be true. The change he had observed in her was not merely skin-deep, and when he used his magical sight there was no mistake. Her magic glowed within her, steady and strong as a mountain river. He sensed that she was more at home with her power than he had ever seen her.

"Niko said there was a connection," he began cautiously, "between me and you."

Evvy didn't seem surprised. "I cut it," she answered abruptly.

"Oh." Briar tried not to sound hurt by this clinical report. "Well, then…I guess you're right. You don't need…" He started to pull away from her.

"No!" Evvy exclaimed before he could say "me". She hugged him closer, her cheek against his. He could feel her breath on his neck as she whispered, "I need you more than I've ever needed anyone."

Briar was too startled by this sincerity to speak. The Evvy he knew would blush and stammer, even bark a snippy retort if she thought you sensed her vulnerability. The girl who now held him tightly was fearless.

_She's not a little girl anymore_, he thought suddenly. _She's become a full-grown mage, and without any help from me, either._ He smiled, though he couldn't keep a note of sadness out of his voice as he said, "Evvy, you don't _need_ a plant mage pahan. Not anymore."

"That may be true," she considered. "But I want you," she added, and Briar could clearly hear the note of desire in her voice.

Briar swallowed hard. Just where _this _Evvy had been hiding, Briar could not begin to fathom. Mortified, Briar looked around to see how Tris was enjoying the scene, but she was already walking around the corner, smiling wickedly and muttering something about finding something to eat.

He directed his attention back to Evvy and tried to formulate an argument against the girl. It was difficult, for he hadn't expected her to fight him in quite this manner. "Evvy, you don't know what you're saying," he said sternly. "You're young. You don't know what you want." Briar fought the urge to bite his tongue. He sounded like an old hen.

"You sound like an old hen," Evvy said impatiently. How she could always manage to read his mind like that was beyond him. Then a frightened look came over her and she ducked her head to avoid his eye. Her voice was barely a mumble. "Unless…you don't…care for me like that, then?" Her grip on him loosened.

Briar couldn't help himself. He forgot his list of carefully wrought explanations and clutched her instinctively. "No! Evvy, I do love you, it's just—" The words tumbled out unbidden. Then he saw it: the wicked twitch at the corner of her lips, half hidden by the black hair curtaining her face. She had him. It had taken no more than a few words and a masterful droop of the head, but she had him. And she knew it. _Impudent brat_, he thought furiously.

He tilted her chin up to get a better look, and sure enough, he spied that insolent grin. He looked at her long and crossly, but he couldn't hold the serious expression for long. He smiled in defeat. "You got me," he said suddenly. "I'm in love with you, Evvy."

Evvy looked about to burst into happy, sobbing rambles again, but that proved too much for Briar. He silenced her quickly with an open-mouthed kiss. He took pleasure in the way her body went rigid as his tongue entered her mouth, and as eager as she had been moments before, it was clear he still had a few tricks that could best her. He had that victory, at least.

When he was through, he saw her face and laughed outright. She was bright red and stuttering.

"Y-you didn't have to…what was _that_ all about?" she gasped weakly.

He grinned back at her. "The mighty Pahan Evvy scared of a green boy's kiss?" he teased.

She glared back with dark, glittering eyes, all meekness gone. "No," she declared obstinately. "I'm not afraid of you."

Briar felt himself shiver. All at once he perceived and admired the wild, beautiful, powerful being she was. There was truly no one like her. Evvy had always been a free spirit; he knew she would never cease to give him the headaches to prove it, but he also knew that at her core she was completely and utterly his, even without the magical connection. More importantly, she had _chosen _to be his, and this knowledge made him burn all over. In that instant he knew he would always, _always_ be hers as well.

"Show me then, my fearsome girl," he challenged hoarsely.

END

* * *

Mehhh...I might write an epilogue.


End file.
